The former Luton University took most of the higher education world by surprise in 2006 by taking over De Montfort University’s Bedford campus and establishing the University of Bedfordshire.

The move made the new university the main provider of higher education in a relatively prosperous county and allowed it to shed a name that – however unfairly – had become a liability.

In fact, Luton’s teaching ratings were described by no less an authority than Charles Clarke, as Education Secretary, as “bloody brilliant” and one survey showed it winning more research contracts per pound of state funding than any other university.

But there was no escaping the unglamorous image. With two quite different sites to its name, the new university is expanding and developing, with an £80-million investment programme.

The Luton campus had already seen the addition of a well-equipped media arts centre and an impressive learning resources centre.

A new student centre is in the pipeline. A redevelopment programme for the Bedford campus involves a new campus centre with a students’ union and a 280- seat auditorium, as well as a £20-million accommodation block for 500 students. Two new gyms and a series of sports science laboratories opened in 2006.

A free shuttle bus service operates between the two sites. The Bedford campus, once a teacher training college, is a 20-minute walk from the town centre in a “self-contained leafy setting”. It houses the Faculty of Education and Contemporary Studies, with 3,000 students and plans for more.

Although there are partner colleges in Bedford, Dunstable and Milton Keynes, the bulk of the students will remain in Luton. The borough council has considered making the Park Square campus the centre of a refurbished “cultural quarter”.

Vocational character

The centrepiece of the campus, in the midst of the shopping area, is the striking atrium which leads into the learning resources centre. Luton has also added extensive residential accommodation in recent years. There is also an attractive management centre and conference venue at Putteridge Bury, a neo-Elizabethan mansion three miles outside Luton.

Nursing and midwifery students in the growing Faculty of Health and Social Sciences, are scattered more widely, with Stoke Mandeville Hospital and Wycombe General Hospital the centres in Buckinghamshire, while Bedford, and Luton and Dunstable hospitals provide the equivalent for Bedfordshire.

A postgraduate medical school is run in partnership with Hertfordshire and Cranfield universities, as part of the Government’s £1-billion investment in healthcare across Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire. Courses in the new university will maintain the vocational character that Luton pursued after dropping a number of traditional academic subjects.

The portfolio of 44 two-year Foundation degrees, for example, is among the largest in the country, stretching from football studies and international tennis management to youth justice and nutritional therapy. Bedfordshire students will also benefit from a national centre of excellence in personal development planning and employability, awarded to Luton in 2005.

Employment

The first official measure of graduate prospects showed the university to have the lowest unemployment rate of any university. Luton also pioneered electronic assessment, with more than 10,000 students in disciplines from accountancy to biology tested by computer.

Applications for courses beginning in 2007 showed a big increase on the previous year’s figures for Luton and the Bedford campus of De Montfort, but the 9 per cent increase at the start of 2008 was even more impressive since most universities saw a decline with the switch from six choices per applicant to five.

Luton claimed to have the second most diverse intake in Britain, with almost one student in three coming from an ethnic minority and a similar proportion arriving without traditional academic qualifications. Almost all of Bedfordshire’s entrants are from state schools and 43 per cent come from working-class backgrounds.

Social scene

A high proportion are mature students, many taking access courses to bring them up to degree or diploma standard, with about a third of the school-leavers arriving through Clearing. Neither Luton nor Bedford is particularly famous for its social scene, but both have their share of pubs, clubs and restaurants.

London is only half an hour away by train for those seeking something livelier. There is enough accommodation to guarantee a place for all first years, and the sports facilities are improving, albeit from a low base in Luton.

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