University Campus Suffolk

University Campus Suffolk (UCS) is a partnership between the University of East Anglia and the University of Essex, working with Great Yarmouth College, Lowestoft College, Otley College, Suffolk New College and West Suffolk College. The first students of UCS enrolled in September 2007. This development is supported by local government, the East of England Development Agency and the Higher Education Funding Council. The aim is to provide Suffolk with a thriving university campus with a hub in the county town of Ipswich, together with linked campuses in Bury St Edmunds, Great Yarmouth, Lowestoft and Otley. In Ipswich this development with the newly built further education college will form the Ipswich Education Quarter, located on and around the town’s exciting and rapidly redeveloping Waterfront. Great Yarmouth College, Lowestoft College, Otley College and West Suffolk College in Bury St Edmunds have also joined UCS and major new campuses are being planned in both Bury and Lowestoft to serve the needs of further and higher education. The development of UCS is a county-wide initiative serving the whole of Suffolk and extending into Waveney, Norfolk.

UCS also provides a number of innovative local learning centres across Suffolk called Learning and Enterprise Access Points (LEAPS). These offer advice, opportunities and progression routes to further study at university level. As a consequence, UCS will address the problems of isolation in rural and coastal communities in Suffolk and help to ensure that higher education is accessible to as many people as possible.

The founding higher education institutions – the University of East Anglia and the University of Essex – with the partner colleges – offer a unique collaboration of further and higher education. The universities, building on their established reputations in teaching and research collaborate with the colleges to offer a professionally and vocationally relevant curriculum. The new campus, with linked centres across the county, will become quickly sustainable and a beacon of excellence attracting students from Suffolk and beyond, helping to reverse the net export of graduates which has adversely affected Suffolk for many years.

The overwhelming majority of full-time undergraduates who formed the initial intake to UCS were derived from the existing Suffolk College higher education base. The statistics from this student body are therefore used to inform the agreement.

Widening participation has been central to the missions of all the partner colleges and the profile of the higher education student body reflects this. Amongst the full-time HEFCE-funded students, there is a spread of socio-economic status with 30% coming from routine and semi-routine occupations, 8% from lower supervisory and technical occupations, 50% from intermediate occupations, and 12% from managerial and professional occupations. 55% of the students are mature (over 21) with 65% being female and 36% male. 7.7% come from ethnic minorities (against a background figure for Suffolk of 2.8%). 41% of students had full state support with their tuition fees, 11% had partial state support, and 48% paid their own fees. 70% of entrants had non-A-level entry qualifications. 65% come from within the county of Suffolk where forty-seven wards have been designated as being within the most deprived 10% nationally (Indices of Deprivation 2000).

In-course retention and achievement rates are high. In 2007/8, in-course retention was 93.8% and achievement was 90.6%. A key strength is the quality of student support and this aspect contributes significantly to the retention and success rates of students. Subject based reviews by the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) have resulted in excellent outcomes with confidence in standards and consistent top level ‘commendable’ grades for teaching, learning and student progression.

website: www.ucs.ac.uk