Staffordshire describes itself as a “university in the community” but it is increasingly reliant on overseas students, both at home and abroad.

There are 5,000 students taking Staffordshire courses outside Britain, almost half of them located around the Pacific Rim, as well as a growing cohort of foreign students in the university’s domestic campuses.

There are more than 12,000 UK students and, while the demand for places held steady with the arrival of top-up fees, Staffordshire was one of the few universities where applications fell in 2007.

There was a further decline at the start of 2008, with the reduction in the number of choices per applicant. The university is based on two main sites: the headquarters in Stoke and the other 12 miles away in Stafford.

Investment

A £1.5-million media centre opened at Stoke in 2005, while the large business school straddles the two campuses in an attempt to foster links with the private sector.

The first phase of plans for a 400-acre University Quarter will see the construction of a science centre. The rural Stafford site features the purpose-built Octagon Centre, in which lecture theatres, offices and walkways surround one of the largest university computing facilities in Europe.

A £2.4-million New Technologies Centre, opened in 2003, has helped develop popular courses such as film production technology and a broadcast-standard television studio has now been added. Health, engineering and technology are all based at Stafford, while Stoke specialises in the arts, sciences and social sciences.

A new campus in Lichfield houses an integrated further and higher education centre, developed in partnership with Tamworth and Lichfield College, in the first purpose-built institution of its kind. The main aim is to act as a resource centre for local businesses.

International

The School of Health has branches in Telford, Shrewsbury and Oswestry, but franchised courses spread the university’s net much further afield. Staffordshire courses are taken in China, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Greece, Spain and France. The university also runs courses for more than 1,000 students at further education colleges in its own region, as well as offering incentives for local people to apply.

A priority applications scheme guarantees a place to under-21s from Staffordshire, Shropshire or Cheshire as long as they meet the minimum requirements for their chosen course, while mature students are guaranteed at least an interview if they join one of the range of access courses.

Even before the advent of top-up fees, the university was offering £500 awards to disadvantaged students from Shropshire, Cheshire and Staffordshire. The policy has been working – more than a third of the students are from the local area and a programme, run in conjunction with Keele University, aims to increase the numbers further.

An extensive portfolio of Foundation degrees has continued to expand, with the addition of telecommunications and management, and communications and networks courses developed in collaboration with BT/Accenture. Many programmes are available with a January start, a popular arrangement with overseas students who take English language courses before beginning a degree.

Teacher training

Staffordshire is in the top three universities for secondary teacher training courses, and was among the leading new universities in the 2007 National Student Survey, with sociology and social policy students emerging as the most satisfied in the country. In the last Research Assessment Exercise, a relatively low proportion of academics was entered and, although no subjects reached the top two grades, media studies and art and design were in the next category.

With 98 per cent of its undergraduates state-educated and more than a third coming from working-class homes, Staffordshire comfortably exceeds all the benchmarks set by the funding council for widening access to higher education. There is good provision for the 700 students with disabilities.

The projected dropout rate of 19 per cent is only slightly higher than average for the university’s courses and entry qualifications. Stoke is not the liveliest city of its size, but the campus is close to the railway station, within easy reach of the centre and has a buzzing union.

Stafford is much the more attractive setting and offers the best chance of a residential place, but the town is quiet and the campus is a mile and a half outside it. Sports facilities are good, especially in Stafford, where there is a new £1.4-million sports centre and all-weather pitches. Sports scholarships and good coaching have helped attract some outstanding athletes, who have access to a sports performance centre to help with training schedules, psychological support and dietary assessments.

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