We’re fast approaching that time of year when, while in our final years of sixth form, all the grown-ups in our lives were shoving prospectuses down our throats and had little else to talk about other than pesky personal statements. We can only imagine that manic run up to UCAS deadlines looks pretty similar on the other side of the higher education fence where universities up and down the country are desperately trying to convince the student population that they’re the most impressive institution, have the most promising graduate employment prospects and so on.
While the challenge of narrowing down which university is worthy of a £44,000 debtis hard enough on its own though, it’s certainly not helped by the barrage of confusing stats and misleading claims used to try and convince you to enrol. Especially when some of the information advertised isn’t necessarily true.
Six UK universities have had to get rid of their marketing campaigns because of misleading advertising following examination by The Advertising Standards Authority. The Guardian reported that the universities highlighted include Falmouth, who said it’s the UK’s ‘number one arts and creative university’; Strathclyde, who’s physics department was apparently ranked ‘number one in the UK’, the University of West London, who said it was ‘London’s top modern university – and one of the top 10 in the UK’; Teesside uni claimed to be ‘top university in England for long-term graduate prospects’; and the University of East Anglia who said it’s in the ‘top five for student satisfaction’.
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You wouldn’t be blamed for not quite understanding what any of these claims of excellence actually mean in real terms. When investigated by the ASA, none of these universities was able to prove that the stats they’d advertised were true, which is clearly really troubling. With the continued reminder of just how much rides on a university education should you wish to take one – admittedly, most of which are financial burdens – it’s only increasingly crucial for prospective students to have a clear, honest understanding of what they can expect from wherever they chose to invest 3-4 years of their lives.
These six universities broke UK advertising laws and since the scrapping of their campaigns, the ASA has said it’s going to issue new guidelines for universities to follow for the first time.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.