Students are being warned to be on their guard over their loan payments. The Student Loans Company has said that at this time of year when final loan instalments are due, scam emails are being sent to students asking for personal details and bank numbers.

The number of students who have been caught by these phishing mails has more than tripled over the past year, the SLC said. It is currently working with Sheffield Hallam University to investigate a scam that affected about 50 students recently.SLC’s security manager Robert Hurt confirmed they would never request personal details by email, and said students should be vigilant -

“We monitor this issue very closely and aim to close phishing sites down as soon as students alert us to them, to protect other students.

“Students need to work with us to ensure their identity and financial details are protected and not compromised.”

Main story from the BBC website

Plans to drop the study of philosophy at Keele University have been scrapped - following protests around the country that were supported by philosophers at Cambridge, Oxford and University College London, as well as at Keele itself, the university’s senate has decided that both Philosophy and Professional Ethics should continue to be offered.

Philosophy has been a key feature at Keele since the university’s foundation in 1949 by AD Lindsay, a philosopher himself, and many distinguished philosophers have worked there, including Richard Swinburne, Anthony Flew, Jonathan Dancy, Andre Gallois, Alan Montefiore, Philip Stratton-Lake and David McNaughton.

Since the plans were announced earlier this month a strong protest campaign, centred on a Facebook group, has been in action, with the proposed cuts being described as an ‘emblematic loss’ that would damage the institution’s credibility. When the about-turn was announced Dr James Tartaglia, of the Keele Philosophy programme, speaking on BBC Radio Stoke, called it ‘ a fantastic result’.

The university’s plan had been intended to save around £300,000 – Keele has issued a statement saying it still needs to make savings of £1.3m in this latest phase of cuts, so will now look at alternative proposals.

More on this story on the BBC website

Universities worried about changes to the student visa system now have the support of an all-party committee of MPs – the BBC today reported that the MPs are urging the government not to go ahead, warning of ‘potentially calamitous’ consequences to an industry worth £40 bn a year.

Immigration Minister Damian Green announced in January that ‘taking action on students is particularly important as they make up roughly two thirds of non-European economic area immigrants, and the number of student visas issued has been rising in recent years.’  Net immigration has increased, largely because many more students from outside the EU are coming to British colleges, language schools and universities.

However, the minister also said, ‘We want to encourage all those genuine students coming here to study at our world-class academic institutions.’ This led to claims of a ‘lack of clarity’ and concern that the attempt to reduce the number of ‘bogus’ students and colleges might have very serious ‘unintended consequences’ – ie, that Britain might lose out on billions of pounds if it does not appear to be as welcoming as other countries.

Shadow universities minister Gareth Thomas said universities were ‘hugely worried about the financial implications of a big drop in overseas student numbers’ which would help to drive up tuition fees for home students.

As the Complete University Guide points out, the UK is the second most popular destination for students from overseas, after the USA. Here in the UK we welcome more than 350,000 international students each year, more than 20 per cent of the world’s share.  (For more information about what overseas students study and where, see the CUG dedicated pages.)

The chairman of the all-parties committee, Keith Vaz MP, felt student numbers should not be included in the net migration figures. He explained: ‘Students are not migrants. They come from all over the world to study here, contributing to the economy both through payment of fees and wider spending. Whilst we are right to seek to eliminate bogus colleges and bogus students, we need to ensure that we continue to attract the brightest and the best… if the door is shut they will simply study elsewhere.’

Full story on the BBC website

League tables are now familiar tools by which we judge universities and schools around the world. But a new listing has for the first time ranked 200 international universities according to their reputation alone.  Phil Baty, editor of the THE World University Rankings, said: ‘In an ever more competitive global market… a university’s reputation for academic excellence is crucial.’

A panel of 13,000 international academics was asked to vote, and came up with a list that included seven US institutions in the top ten, headed by Harvard and MIT, with just two UK universities – Cambridge at third place, and Oxford at sixth – plus Tokyo university at eighth.

It may be subjective, but reputation is ‘not an illusion’ – it has genuine economic value for universities, commented Simon Marginson, professor of higher education at the University of Melbourne in Australia.

Similarly, the president of Cambridge University students’ union, Rahul Mansigani, said,  ‘Reputation makes a huge difference. If there is a perception that somewhere is brilliant, it will get lots of good people applying whether it’s true or not.’ Factors such as a sense of history and the presence of leading academics were part of the reputation of Cambridge, he thought.  But with recent worries about university links with dubious regimes, he warned about the need to protect the ‘moral reputation’ of a university. In the wake of the LSE embarrassment over links with Libya, reputation has appeared to be a valuable but fragile commodity.

The top ten:

1. Harvard
2. MIT
3. Cambridge
4. California, Berkeley
5. Stanford
6. Oxford
7. Princeton
8. Tokyo
9. Yale
10. California Institute of Technology

Source: Times Higher Education

More on this story from the BBC

An end to free higher education in Scotland is feared, after Universities Scotland, the body representing Scotland’s university principals has said students may have to pay towards the cost of their degrees.

It says that higher education should be ‘free at the point of entry and throughout study’ but that graduates who go on to earn reasonable salaries should be asked to pay.

The principals are worried that Scottish universities are beginning to fall behind the standards of those in England and are warning that institutions in Scotland will be left with a huge funding gap after tuition fees are raised in England – the case for a ‘fair and modest’ payment by Scottish graduates was now ‘unanswerable’ if current levels of teaching and student numbers were to be maintained.

This has increased pressure on the next Scottish government, as English universities are preparing to charge between £6,000 and £9,000 a year in fees. But the Scottish government’s First Minister, Alex Salmond told MSPs a ‘distinctive Scottish’ solution was needed, and that the government would set out fresh options for funding before the end of the year – however he insisted that a return to tuition fees had been ruled out and said no decisions would be made until all those who have an interest, including students, the universities and staff, have offered their views.

The country’s leading colleges are now facing strikes, laying off staff and closing departments. Glasgow is planning to shut its modern languages and anthropology departments, while staff at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh are to take industrial action.

The National Union of Students Scotland has added its voice to the debate, demanding that free tuition should be retained in Scotland. A demo under the banner Reclaim Your Voice, to be held on 22 March in Edinburgh will seek to reinforce their views.

More on this story from BBC Scotland and from the Scotsman newspaper online

Plans for a  new ‘super university’ in Wales have been agreed by the three higher education institutions concerned. The move will bring together the University of Wales Institute Cardiff (Uwic), Swansea Metropolitan University and Trinity Saint David in Carmarthen – the new university will be known simply as the University of Wales.

The three institutions already work closely together and students receive University of Wales degrees, but the full merger will create the country’s third largest university, behind Cardiff and Glamorgan. It could also eventually be joined by University of Wales Newport and Glyndr University, Wrexham, to form the largest university in Wales.

The University of Wales will be led jointly by Prof Marc Clement as president/pro-chancellor, and Prof Medwin Hughes as rector/pro-chancellor.  In December, Education Minister Leighton Andrews challenged universities to ‘adapt or die’, and made reducing the number of university vice-chancellors a priority.

Dr Geoffrey Thomas, chairman of the Governing Body of the University of Wales, Trinity St David, said the move responded ‘to the global challenges of the 21st century’.

Full story at WalesonLine news site.

At Oxford, academics and students took part in a university meeting about what tuition fees should be from 2012. Pro-vice chancellor Tony Monaco said Oxford needed to charge at least £8,000 to make up for cuts, while students said poorer applicants would be put off. Yesterday, leaked proposals from a Cambridge working group revealed the university is considering plans to set fees at the maximum level of £9,000 a year for every subject, with poorer students being offered means-tested reductions of up to £3,000.

Cambridge may also offer a bursary of £1,625 for students from families with an income less than £25,000.

Their internal report, seen by the BBC News website, suggested that charging less than the maximum would be “fiscally irresponsible” and would raise doubts about the university’s “commitment to excellence”.

But the report from the Cambridge working group also says it expects “most if not all our peers” to charge the maximum fee – a view shared by the NUS president Aaron Porter, who said that his “behind the scenes conversations” with universities suggest fees of £9,000 will be the norm.

Decisions on the final amounts will take place over the next few weeks.

Chinese New Year this week (2nd February), heralded the year of the Rabbit – said to be a more relaxed prospect than last year’s Tiger. But most economists believe there will be no relaxation in the great Chinese expansion, possibly surpassing the US in dollar terms in a few decades and offering many career opportunities. Two-way traffic in students is thriving between China and the UK, and shows no sign of slowing – every year more UK students set off to study in China while large numbers of Chinese students want to come to UK institutions.

Finance can be tricky of course, but even if your own university or college cannot offer you any help for Chinese study, there are other possibilities. Many grants and scholarships for British students in China and Chinese students in Britain are available from institutions such as the British Academy, the British Council, the Royal Society and others – details are available on the Great Britain China Centre website.

For postgraduates who want to study the Chinese language, the GBCC Educational Trust awards its own Chinese language scholarships, normally up to £2,000 each. They consider applications twice a year and the next deadline is 11 April 2011.

If you want to read about a young man who has begun a great career based on his Chinese studies, see the Complete University Guide profile of David Young

Many people now see China as the burgeoning new land of opportunity, especially for western graduates. David Young decided to go there for his gap year in 2003, before taking up a Politics degree course at Bristol University – now he’s got a job in London organising training events and conferences with top Chinese firms and using his fluent Chinese every day. 

David explains why he fell for China and what his experience has been.

After completing my A levels in 2003, I decided to go to China and teach for a charity (via GAP activity projects, now known as LATITUDE), rather than do the conventional gap year. I found it eye-opening – based mainly in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, but also travelling in the countryside and in Shanghai. I was enthralled by the country, the culture and the language. I and a friend found work just by knocking on doors and talking to people – and we practised our Chinese by reading menus in the evenings. We used a digital camera to take pictures of the food we liked, with a nightly process of trial and error trying as many dishes as possible until we found the food we enjoyed!

China opening up

I was immediately struck by the way the country was starting to open up, and by the sheer number of opportunities open to young westerners in China. In the fast growing service sectors, the business world in general and particularly in the fields of travel, hotels, nutrition and medicine, the chance to forge an individual career was so much greater than at home – as well as being more rewarding financially. So, although I came home to take my degree at Bristol, I was going back to China every summer holiday, working and learning more of the language. After graduating I applied for a year’s course (2007–8) in Advanced Mandarin at Nanjing University, which I financed myself with quite a variety of jobs – including teaching, and being an au pair, as well as setting up my own party-organising company. That was great and I did come back to the UK to take an MCD in Advanced Mandarin at Oxford (financed by teaching English as a foreign language at a local secondary school), which was good for formal knowledge of the language and gave my CV a boost too.

Try for a scholarship

Now I think many more UK universities and other institutions/organisations are prepared to offer scholarships for China – so most students might not need to be quite so inventive as I had to be in finding well-paid work! Still it really stood me in good stead learning the language.

I didn’t take languages at A level and don’t consider myself a linguist, but daily practise is definitely the key – my personal opinion is that you get much more out of studying at Chinese university at an advanced level rather than as a beginner. Chinese nowadays has its own standard form of Mandarin – a bit like we have ‘RP’ English – which is understood by almost everyone in China, certainly those under 50, and is taught at all Chinese universities. This is still an unknown land to most people in the west – yet there are 10 cities in China bigger than London and I’d say the universities in the north, where everyone has the standardised Putonghua accent, are particularly suitable for westerners.

David, how do you see prospects for future graduates?

Since I first went to China in 2003 the openings for western graduates have only grown greater – even as they have begun to decrease here at home. I can see that commercial opportunities will multiply as China develops – in a few years, for example, I’m certain that someone setting up a skiing holiday operation in the north-easterly mountains (they rival Aspen in Colorado) would be on to a winner.

So it doesn’t matter if you are not a specialist linguist, or what your degree is in. Degrees in business studies or economics would certainly be a plus, but there are plenty of other ways of making a career with your Chinese. You don’t even have to be in China, since Chinese people now increasingly come to other parts of the world and there is great demand for people who can facilitate their work or study – everywhere from the UK and USA to the south of France! I’m now working in central London, but I’m using my Chinese on a daily basis, talking to Chinese firms, setting up events and making contacts. Because I now have a Chinese name as well as an English one, the sheer surprise of senior business people when they realise they are actually talking to an Englishman is always a good starting point. The important thing to remember is that Chinese people are actually really warm and friendly once you break the ice – so make some jokes!

I’d say, if you are coming up for your gap year, or deciding what your future might be, think about going to China. Try it out, see what’s going on and how you could find a role – and try to be bold, knock on doors and talk to people.

David Young works in London for a conference company producing events in London, New York and China. He lives in central London, enjoys cycling to work and writes a weekly column for Vhcle magazine.