The truth about Middlesex

1. Privatisation

Like plenty of others, Middlesex University has set its tuition fees at £9,000 a year for all undergraduates from 2012. But the former polytechnic in north London is spending little on subsidising poor students. So the cost to new entrants will be an average of £8,602 after fee waivers and bursaries—the second highest figure in all England’s universities. 1

That news has divided opinion. On one side are critics such as economist Tim Leunig from the London School of Economics and, in his capacity as chief economist at the thinktank CentreForum, author of the recent report Universities Challenged. He senses that students are being exploited. “In no shape or form is Middlesex one of the jewels in the British university system. The Times puts it in the bottom 10 universities by student satisfaction, it has the fourth lowest entry standards, and scores badly on staff-student ratios, graduation rates, graduate prospects and so on,” he wrote on the CentreForum blog. 2