universities

A new tool for students looking to study at British universities was unveiled today, which provides all the vital information needed. The government backed website Unistats has details on every single one of the 31,000 higher education courses in the UK, including how much they will cost, the teaching hours involved and the likely salary graduates will earn.

The website is the latest attempt to promote British universities and help students decipher all the recent changes to tuition fees. This year university applications were down for the first time in years, as the higher tuition fees came in to play. The government hopes that the comprehensive and easily understandable information will encourage those prospective students who have been put off by the confusion of the last year or so. The thinking is, if you are going to be paying £9,000 a year for a course, you want to know exactly what you're getting before you apply.

The Higher Education Funding Council has provided the information for every course in the UK, helping future students find:

Yesterday we brought you the first in a series exploring the things that international students find strange about the UK. From the food, to the politicians, to the pedestrian crossings, there was plenty of British weirdness on show.

Well, you lucky people haven't had to wait long for part two of this series- in fact, here it is now! Today, we're looking at all those questions that foreign students have about Britain and British students, but have never dared ask.

As with yesterday, the students we spoke to come from around the world but have all studied at both American colleges and British universities. Thanks again go to Tessa who led the discussions, as she came up with some real gems.

And here is where you can get involved. Below is a list of all the questions our students came up with. We want you to vote for your favourite ones (or even come up with your own) over the next few weeks. We'll then answer the most popular questions. Comment below the article with your favourites or let us know on our Facebook page. 

With many of you arriving in the UK for the first time in the next few weeks, you'll probably be wondering quite what to expect. Inevitably there are going to be things you find strange and unusual about Britain that are completely different to your home country.

To help you realise you're not alone we have a series of blog posts from the perspective of international students who have already spent time in Britain. We will be taking a light-hearted look at what they find weird about Britain, the British and their fellow students.

To start us off, creator of IntProblems.com, and ForeignStudents.com regular Tessa, spoke to a group of students. All the students have experienced both American colleges and British universities so are in the perfect position to answer the question:

The latest world university rankings have been released by higher education organisation QS. The annual table is one of the most respected global rankings, and this year places an unexpected university at the coveted number one spot.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT- above) has taken top place from the University of Cambridge, rising up from fifth spot just two years ago. The US university specialises in science and technology and was placed first in 11 out of 28 subject tables published in June. Cambridge drops down to second, and is joined by UCL (4th), Oxford (5th) and Imperial (6th) for British universities in the top ten.

The rankings are based on a number of different factors, including research quality, graduate employability, teaching and how international the staff and students of the institution are. It is on this last point that MIT has improved greatly on in the last couple of years, with a newly international staff helping it reach top spot.

Where do you think the best city to study is? Are certain places a student's paradise and others a student's hell? Well, a new survey hoping to answer those questions has placed London as the second best city in the world for students. Only Paris beat the UK capital after cities were judged on affordability, quality of life and the number and reputation of their universities.

Higher Education organisation QS carried out the survey predominantly with international students in mind, with hundreds of thousands currently considering where to study. Over 500 cities were considered, with anywhere with a population of over 250,000 and at least two universities qualifying.

The sheer number of London's top quality universities (think Imperial, UCL, King's, SOAS) gave it the edge over Paris, but the city was let down by being far more expensive than the French capital. Whilst international students in London will expect to pay up to £20,000 each year in tuition fees, that figure drops to just £1,000 at Paris universities. Ben Sowter, the lead researcher, explained: