Placements without the protections that come with a job
Researchers find placement students routinely working 75-hour weeks across study, unpaid placement hours and paid work taken to fund the placement — with none of the protections an employee would have on working time, pay or health and safety. If your course includes a placement, ask whether it is paid, what the maximum hours are, and who is responsible for you while you are there. The placement year covers what to check.
UCL says it will not pass the levy on to international students
UCL has said it will absorb the cost of the proposed international student levy rather than passing it on in fees — the first major university to commit publicly. Others have declined to say, which matters to applicants comparing offers: a £925 per student charge has to come from somewhere, and fees are the obvious place.
Amnesty campaigns on campus protest rules
Amnesty International is launching a campaign on free speech at universities, with attention on protest policies of the kind Birmingham operates. Universities’ protest rules — where you may gather, with what notice, and what counts as disruption — are published documents, and they have tightened at several institutions in the past two years.
Building a gym women actually want to use
A student-led push for a female-focused gym and fitness community at Warwick has gone from an idea to a programme in a year. University gyms report the same pattern everywhere — women use the weights areas far less — and the fixes that work are timetabled sessions and coaching rather than new equipment. University sport and fitness covers starting.