universities

When overseas students are considering UK universities, options in Oxford, Cambridge, London or Edinburgh often top their wish-lists.

The attractions of these cities and their iconic institutions are fairly obvious - but course fees can be high and costs of living prohibitive.

But all is not lost, because there are several outstanding outlying towns with good higher education offerings and decent student living standards - Luton in Bedfordshire being a prominent example.

So if you're prepared to study slightly off the beaten track, here are three reasons Luton's a great place to learn.

1.   University of Bedfordshire

When you're investing in a university course, you'll naturally seek a good ROI from a reputable organisation.

And international students studying at the University of Bedfordshire benefit from a convenient town centre campus with a seven-storey library, sports therapy and science laboratories, state-of-the-art gym and industry-standard TV studio.

But depending on course choice, you might be based in neighbouring campuses in Bedford, Milton Keynes, Aylesbury or Putteridge Bury - all of which have their own distinctive charms.

Gone are the days of students having to travel thousands of miles in search of a good education. In an effort to secure a career, it wasn't abnormal for youngsters to need to fly the nest and move to another city - or even a foreign country - to gain the skills they needed to get ahead. 

These days, however, institutions around the globe offer a veritable smorgasbord of degree choices, all designed to meet the needs of education hungry students, without the need to up sticks if they don't want to.

But what if you fancy something a little more unusual that's not readily available on your doorstep? What if you want to study in a foreign land? What if you want to endure 12 months of rain?

Well, away from your archetypal undergraduate subjects such as accounting, law or humanities, the UK is positively bubbling with a range of atypical courses designed to get your grey matter tingling. Whether you fancy a degree in viticulture and oenology or a solid grounding in Viking Studies, Dear Old Blighty really is the place to be.

To get you started, check out three of the most unusual degrees you can study in Britain ...

The latest data has revealed some very shocking numbers when it comes to young minds from UK shifting base to the land of opportunities that we all know as America. The top universities in the US have recorded a high number of in-take from United Kingdom. The dull job scenario and overall job crunch in the market seems to be the reason why bright minds from the UK have decided to try their luck in United States of America.

As per the data released by the elite universities in America, it was evident that the British students are flocking the American colleges in large numbers especially for the flexibility in courses related to Arts field. The students are known to seek admission in the liberal arts which encompasses a wide spectrum and also provides them the liberty to study range of subjects before they take specialization in the third year.

The most compelling reason to make a noticeable shift is the steep hike in the tuition fee in UK universities. At the same time, American universities are offering attractive scholarships to international students which have led to the surge in the British brain drain from their own country. Listed below are the top five courses that the students are seeking admission in.

The latest global university rankings have been released, with record numbers of UK universities appearing in the prestigious list. The annual QS world university rankings table places six British universities in the top 20 and 15 in the top 200, though Cambridge has slipped from second to third as the highest ranked UK institution.

The list was topped by two American colleges- MIT pipping Harvard to claim the top spot for the second year running. Four further US institutions are in the top 10 and this American domination continues throughout the list, with over 50 US colleges appearing in the top 200. However, UK universities are a clear second, with Cambridge, UCL, Imperial and Oxford all placed in the top 10 in the world.