Once a college of advanced technology, a third of City students now study business, a third health subjects and the remaining third law, computing, engineering, journalism, and the arts.

But the university has maintained its links with business, industry and the professions, reaping the benefits with consistently good graduate employment figures.

The university’s graduates play their part, with more than 4,000 of them offering practical help to current students through an online careers network.

Courses have a practical edge, and many of the staff hold professional, as well as academic, qualifications. #

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The university is still comparatively small despite steady growth in the last five years, which has seen student numbers reach almost 23,000, including large contingents of postgraduates and parttimers.

Numbers doubled during the 1990s, partly due to the incorporation of a nursing and midwifery college at nearby St Bartholomew’s Hospital and the Charterhouse College of Radiography.

Demand

Applications have increased steadily over the last four years, when other universities have experienced big swings in the demand for places. The 7.6 per cent increase at the start of 2008 was particularly impressive since it coincided with the reduction in choices per applicant from six to five.

Development has taken place at the university’s headquarters, on the borders of the City of London, but the most ambitious project has been the £42-million home for the business school, in the financial district of the City of London. Opened in 2002, the new building, spread over eight floors, doubled the school’s usable space, enabling it to expand its academic activity and executive programmes.

Another £20 million has gone into an impressive new building for the School of Social Sciences. The Cass Business School is one of City’s great strengths. It was the first Western university to forge links with the Bank of China, running an Executive MBA programme in Shanghai as the first step to a wider role in business education throughout east and southeast Asia.

European

City has links with 50 European universities and many more further afield, and many students spend a year of their course abroad.

The university had already boosted its legal provision by incorporating the Inns of Court School of Law in 2001. The City Law School, which includes the university’s original department, offers London’s only “one-stop shop” for legal training, from undergraduate to professional courses. City is also working with Queen Mary, University of London, in a range of subjects, starting with medicine and other health subjects, journalism and engineering.

The two universities jointly host a national centre for teaching and learning in nursing and midwifery. City has a particularly high reputation in music, where it is associated with the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, with its teaching rated as excellent and research internationally outstanding.

Strengths

The subject achieved the university’s only 5* rating in the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise, but arts policy, business, information science, law and optometry all reached the next grade.

Early teaching assessments were disappointing. The university’s response was to establish an educational development unit to enhance the quality of teaching and launch a review of the effectiveness of personal tutoring. Scores improved dramatically, with business and management, maths and statistics, and health leading the way.

Finance and accounting produced the best scores in a relatively disappointing set of results from the latest National Student Survey. Recent additions to the portfolio of degrees include environmental engineering and Anglo-American law, while the journalism department is highly regarded.

There is also a flourishing sub-degree programme for adults, which ranges from sitcom writing to e-business. The changes have maintained City’s position among the most popular universities in London, with eight applications per undergraduate place. Official performance indicators for higher education have brought mixed news: the dropout rate has been falling but 14 per cent is still high for a traditional university.

Access

City has a good record among its peers for widening participation in higher education, with more than a third of its undergraduates from working-class homes. Students tend to be more concerned about their inability to afford the attractions of a trendy part of London. Most fall back on the extended students’ union, but this is usually shut at weekends for lack of demand. Sports facilities are poor by current university standards, although the indoor sports centre is conveniently located.

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