Catholic universities top student satisfaction survey

CATHOLIC universities in the UK have excelled in this year’s National Student Survey (NSS), with one reaching second place and another five making the top 100. St Mary’s University College Belfast came second overall, with 96 per cent of students affirming overall satisfaction with their course, writes Katherine Backler.

Heythrop College in London (see page 29) came twenty-first, with a student satisfaction rate of 90 per cent. Both Newman University in Birmingham and Liverpool Hope University (a joint Catholic-Anglican foundation) were placed 35th. Liverpool Hope had the highest percentage point increase in student satisfaction in the country, improving from 82 per cent last year to 89 per cent this year. It was also the highest-rated university in the north-west. The NSS, which is published by the Higher Education Funding Council for England, measures students’ satisfaction by asking final-year undergraduates across the country to answer questions on their learning experience. Among the questions asked are whether the course is intellectually stimulating and students feel supported. Also in the top 100 were St Mary’s, Twickenham, south-west London, which came
47th, and Leeds Trinity, which came 87th.