History UsefulNotes / BritishUnis

* University of St Andrews:[[note]]Please don't be tempted to spell it ''St. Andrew's''; for some reason it's written without any punctuation.[[/note]] Located in the small town of St Andrews, Fife. It's technically collegiate like Oxbridge, but in reality the colleges are more notional (for example, saying you went to St. Mary's College is just a more impressive-sounding way of saying you studied Theology as an undergrad). A RunningJoke in the university is that nobody actually knows when it was founded.[[note]]It's complicated. There's evidence of teaching as early as 1410, but it wasn't officially founded until 1413 by Papal decree, but then UsefulNotes/ThePope in question is retrospectively considered illegitimate, although James I of Scotland ([[UsefulNotes/JamesVIAndI not to be confused]]) upheld the University charter following the healing of the Papal Schism.[[/note]] Just to be on the safe side, the University is sticking with 1413 -- possibly to avoid celebrating the 600th anniversary early. In any case, it's the oldest non-Oxbridge uni in the Anglosphere. The ''[[UsefulNotes/BritishNewspapers Guardian]]'' currently ranks it as the best university in the UK. Has one Regius chair. Significantly, the alma mater of [[UsefulNotes/BritishRoyalFamily the Prince and Princess of Wales]] since 2022.

* University of St Andrews:[[note]]Please don't be tempted to spell it ''St. Andrew's''; for some reason it's written without any punctuation.[[/note]] Located in the small town of St Andrews, Fife. It's technically collegiate like Oxbridge, but in reality the colleges are more notional (for example, saying you went to St. Mary's College is just a more impressive-sounding way of saying you studied Theology as an undergrad). A RunningJoke in the university is that nobody actually knows when it was founded.[[note]]It's complicated. There's evidence of teaching as early as 1410, but it wasn't officially founded until 1413 by Papal decree, but then UsefulNotes/ThePope in question is retrospectively considered illegitimate, although James I of Scotland ([[UsefulNotes/JamesVIAndI not to be confused]]) upheld the University charter following the healing of the Papal Schism.[[/note]] Just to be on the safe side, the University is sticking with 1413 -- possibly to avoid celebrating the 600th anniversary early. In any case, it's the oldest non-Oxbridge uni in the Anglosphere. The ''[[UsefulNotes/BritishNewspapers Guardian]]'' currently ranks it as the best university in the UK. Has one Regius chair.

"Uni" is the British slang abbreviation for "university", as in "She's off to Uni in September", similar to the way "college" is used in American English. Unlike their American counterparts, British students ''never'' refer to uni as "school" in conversation. This is the case even when the official name of their institution or department is the School of whatever. In contrast, in the US, people say "I'm in med school" or "I'm going to law school".

Similarly, "college" has several meanings within the British education system, but "uni in general" is ''not'' one of them. In the US, a person going to a state university says "I'm going to college". As well, in Britain, people may say someone is "reading law", which means they're in a law program.

There are distinct differences between the education systems of the four Home Nations (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) due to the devolution of education. This mainly applies to pre-university studies, but still has notable effects here.

!!What You Do And How Much It Costs

British students doing an undergraduate degree will spend three or four years (Four years is standard in Scotland, and some degrees add an extra year of professional placements and workplace training) and often come out with a BA (Bachelor of Arts), [=BEng=] (Bachelor of Engineering), LLB (''Legum Baccalaureus'' - Bachelor of Laws) or [=BSc=] (Bachelor of Science, not [[Series/RedDwarf Bronze Swimming Certificate]]) (and, very rarely, [=BEd=] (Bachelor of Education, but those are an unpopular and rapidly vanishing route into teaching).

* Lower Second, or 2:2 ("Two-Two"). AKA a "Drinker's First". If you didn't really put much effort into your course, and spent much of your time at the pub or engaged in "horizontal human sexuality studies", this is about as good as you can hope for. If you ''did'' try your hardest though, it's a soul-crushing affirmation that you weren't really as smart as you thought you were. Roughly equivalent to a 3.0 or a 2.5, depending. Usually nicknamed a "Desmond", after the South African Anglican Archbishop and anti-[[UsefulNotes/TheApartheidEra apartheid]] campaigner UsefulNotes/DesmondTutu.
* Third. AKA a "[[TheAlcoholic Drinker's Degree]]". In essence, you've just wasted much of your three years and about twenty-five grand, as only the lowest tier employers offering precarious jobs will consider you. Unless you got it from [[UsefulNotes/{{Oxbridge}} Oxford or Cambridge]], in which case it's not an ideal result, but still workable, as the cachet will impress some managers. Just ask [[Series/{{Countdown}} Carol Vorderman]], [[Series/TheArmstrongAndMillerShow Alexander Armstrong]], or Alec Douglas-Home (although in the case of all three, they attended university in an era when few went to university, and *any* form of degree was noteworthy - astonishingly few if any people nowadays go on to have successful careers with a third). 2.5, ish. For nicknames, take your pick between "Thora" and "Douglas", respectively rhyming slang with the actress Thora Hird and the politician Douglas Hurd. (Ironically, Douglas Hurd was the only one of the lot to attend a British university for his undergraduate education[[note]]Neither Geoff Hurst nor Thora Hird attended university; as for UsefulNotes/AttilaTheHun, he died several hundred years before the invention of the university, let alone the establishment of Oxford. Archbishop Tutu did go to King's College London, but to that was for a graduate program in theology; he did his undergraduate work in South Africa.[[/note]]—and he got a First in History at Cambridge.)
* Pass. AKA "Ordinary Degree" (as opposed to the Honours Degree you were aiming for). Usually means that something went very badly wrong indeed. You fell in love and he/she blew you off and you lapsed into depression and stopped going to class. Or you became an AddledAddict and spent the several years of uni in a [[TheStoner drugged haze]]. It means you have to write it as just [=BA=] or [=BSc=] instead of [=BA=] Hons or [=BSc=] Hons. 2.0. Oxford traditionally listed this as Fourth Class, but very few holders of a fourth class degree are still alive. You might find yourself working as a café barista or call center with a uni result like that. Note that not all universities have this: some just have a Third as the lowest grade, and below that nothing is awarded.

If you stay on for an extra year, you can get a Master's degree.
Strictly the undergraduate Master's degree is a four year course, subject to adequate academic performance in year three, otherwise the student is made to leave with a Bachelor's degree instead. This is a default route in most engineering disciplines and an increasing number of sciences. Award levels for this tend to vary between universities, but it's generally either just a "Pass", or a "Distinction" for those that are uber-awesome.

Three or four more years (possibly
more in humanities) and doing original research sucessfully it's a [=PhD=] (Doctor of Philosophy, even if you do German Literature), with the right to call yourself "Doctor". This requires the publication of a piece of new research, a dissertation, that adds to the sum of human knowledge. The traditional format is a bound volume of the [[{{Doorstopper}} size and weight of an urban telephone directory]] ... but slightly less readable.

To become a medical doctor requires a five- or six-year undergraduate degree, with the hands on part increasing as you go. This is technically a Bachelors Degree ([=BMed=], [=BSurg=]), but earns the courtesy title 'Doctor' ... which is why someone who then takes a Surgeon's course (A master's degree - [=MSurg=]) suddenly becomes 'Mr' (or as appropriate) again.
They can then take academic doctorates in addition. A qualified doctor would therefore not automatically be an "MD" in Britain, as this indicates an additional academic doctorate (i.e. with research and a thesis) in medical science.

Note that academic appointments in the UK do not use the US associate/assistant/full professor form for positions and titles, and hence most faculty members are simply titled "Doctor". "Professor" implies that one holds a particular endowed position (e.g. "The MegaCorp Distinguished Professorship in Biogenetic Research, a position that a wealthy TechBro donor or big corporation has funded) and so usually indicates a high level of prestige (plus a pay boost).

Note also that in the UK, dental surgeons are NOT awarded the courtesy title 'Doctor'. [[note]]Though this seems to be changing.[[/note]] The same was true for veterinary surgeons until 2015, when the country's veterinary association allowed vets to use the title, mainly to match with international practise.[[note]]In North America and continental Europe, the veterinary degree is a professional doctorate. In Australia, the veterinary degree is an extended undergraduate programme as in the UK, but vets are nonetheless called "Doctor".[[/note]]

As an example, at one Scottish university, a degree in Computer Science required three subjects to be studied in the first year and second years (Computer Science, Mathematics and a third science course of the student's choice - it was even possible to take 1.5 courses worth of Computer Science and only need to do half a course in another science department) with the third and fourth years being entirely Computer Science, 100% of the time, unless you were taking a joint degree, in which case all first and second year courses were mandated, and third and fourth year were split between the two subjects that made up the degree.

There have been increasing complaints in the media about what are perceived as comedy courses, degrees for the sake of it (the government is trying to get 50% of school-leavers to do a degree, a proposal that has been widely considered an attempt to keep unemployment and NEET figures artificially low, keep young people off the streets and raised fears of grade inflation).[[note]]It's actually impossible to achieve without grade inflation, because 50% of school leavers qualify to take A-levels, of which you need three passes to get into uni. In other words, not only would everyone who qualifies for A-levels have to take them but they'd have to pass them all.[[/note]] These include things like Surf Science (even though this degree was needed in the watersports industry as most of the degree is in fact Oceanography with the surf aspect on top to allow better understanding of the issues it faces) and the oft-complained about Psychology (or, worse, Sociology - frequently lampooned in telly like ''Series/TwoPintsOfLagerAndAPacketOfCrisps'') degrees. There are allegedly far more university places to take Media Studies than there are annual jobs in the media industry (Website/TheOtherWiki claims a factor of 43) -- although in actual fact it's relatively easy to spot which media degrees are useful for getting jobs in the industry and which ones aren'. Basically, if it's one that's 90% French critical theory with the option of shooting a five minute film on one of the school's 1995-era VHS camcorders in your final year, move along.

British Universities used to be free to go to. Media depictions often didn't get the update fax about this changing. This referred to both tuition and the provision of an annual grant for cost of living and textbooks. The grant was means-tested to some extent, so some cost did fall on the parents of students from more affluent households, but at the low income end, it was possible for students from very poor backgrounds to get through a prestigious university at no cost. What media depictions of "uni is free in Britain" also get wrong is it isn't free ''for anyone with a pulse and a high school diploma''. They used to be hard to get into.

Under the Blair Government, a fee of about £1,000 was introduced to be paid up-front, though this was quite often waived depending on how much a student's parents earned. In 2003, a £3,000 fee was introduced, to be paid after graduation. These were dubbed, accurately or not, "top-up fees". It was controversial, with the Labour Government was felt to have breached its 2001 Manifesto promise ("We will not introduce top-up fees and in fact have legislated to prevent them").[[note]]All political promises by lawmakwrs of any stripe should be taken with a grain of salt.[[/note]] With a student loan on top of that, you're talking debts on graduation of at least £10,000 (Though realistically speaking, a student can expect to graduate with a debt of £20,000 upwards). As of 2012, tuition fees rose to £9,000 per year, which upset more than a few people - especially as the Liberal Democrats (who'd become the junior party in the coalition government that took office in 2010) had all personally signed pledges not to increase fees during the election campaign. At present (April 2023), the maximum fee than an institution may charge (which most do) stands at £9,250 per year.

A considerable number of non-UK students come to the UK to study. They're dubbed "International Students". Prior to Brexit, these were grouped into two fee categories -- those from UsefulNotes/TheEuropeanUnion (who could not be charged any more than domestic students) and those who are not (who could be, and were -- much more, in fact). EU students are now treated the same as any other international students, with the result that enrollment from those countries has dropped precipitously.

The important point to note here is that tuition fees do *not* act like a traditional loan, in that if you do not pay it back, you will not face ramifications. Unlike in the USA, you cannot go bankrupt from having tuiton fees - if you don't get a job (or don't get a sufficiently high-paying job) to pay the loan back, you won't be pursued for repayment.

Scotland does things differently. There, students used to pay a £2,000 flat fee. The Lib Dems and Labour claimed that they'd abolished fees, but in usual politician style they promised to abolish "up-front fees", and you still got a bill after you graduated. Then in 2007, the new SNP government allowed the Student Awards Agency to pay these ones for you as well. This only applied to Scottish people though - everyone else still had to pay the fees as they are charged, although Scots still have the student loan to contend with. There was a challenge in the European Court of Human Rights by English students. Because of Scottish law, English students (and Welsh and Northern Irish students), despite all being from the same nation as the Scots, paid ''more'' than EU students who are not. It was alleged that this was discrimination, which it probably was -- but the scheme was upheld in 2013... although following a change in Scottish law four years later, students from the other Home Nations are now on the same footing as their Scottish contemporaries.

There's ''definitely'' a pecking order when it comes to British Universities, with people trying to get their children into the more desirable, elite ones. Unis will compete to get as high up the published newspaper league tables as possible and acquire high teaching and research scores, and students choose five unis from the list based on their subject and expected grades. This scale is overall reputation, many universities punch above their weight in specific fields, usually those related to local industry (eg Sheffield - Metallurgy, Nottingham - Chemistry, Staffordshire - Ceramics). Similarly, some degrees have only local application - law in Scotland, for instance, means you will be taught ''Scots'' law, not the English law taught at Oxbridge, and so Glasgow and Edinburgh share that particular title. Finally, Oxford, Cambridge, St Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Dublin are called the "ancient" universities, because they are the oldest. Before 2013, this meant that they got to appoint "Regius" Professors - "Royal" Professors - who hold appointments created by British monarchs. They still have that privilege, but it's no longer exclusive to those seven unis. In 2013, Elizabeth II created 12 new Regius chairs to mark her Diamond Jubilee, including the first such chairs created outside of the ancient universities. Still more were created in 2016 to mark her 90th birthday. A Regius professor gets a nice title, and being one is a source of bragging rights among academics. Glasgow currently has the highest number of Regius chairs, at 15. Aberdeen is immediately behind with 14. (Incidentally, Oxford has 9 and Cambridge 8.)

* University of Aberdeen: Founded 1495, again by Papal decree - originally founded as two separate colleges. This was later merged in the middle of the 19th century to form one university. Immediately behind Glasgow in Regius chairs.

* Prifysgol Aberystwyth University[[note]]i.e. Prifysgol Aberystwyth/ Aberystwyth University, 'prifysgol' being the Welsh word for 'university'[[/note]]: one of the older universities in Wales (the oldest being Lampeter University which was founded in 1822), it also pioneered the study of International Politics (the department was founded in 1919 with the object of preventing something like UsefulNotes/WorldWarI from ever happening again - well done, everyone). Known colloquially as 'Aber' (pronounced the same way as 'ABBA'). Also the only uni to ever be banned from ''Series/UniversityChallenge'' for five years after the Aber team started a fight with Manchester.

** Essex was at one time notorious for being a hotbed of radical left-wing student politics (think [[StrawmanPolitical Rick]] from ''Series/TheYoungOnes'', but serious) - alumni of the University were at one time ([[OurLawyersAdvisedThisTrope allegedly]]) involved in numerous riots and protests - and the university prides (and sells) itself, with tongue planted firmly in cheek, on the fact that its students have a reputation for being rebellious. Of course life at the university is a little more sedate, nowadays, but it still attracts a healthy amount of lefties, both among the staff and the students.

* The University of Central Lancashire ([=UCLAn=]): Formerly Lancashire Polytechnic, situated in Preston. Has a sizeable population of mature and part-time students and an apparently vast advertising budget. [[note]] as With Wrexham University (below), the former Preston Polytechnic sailed close to the wind of legal action by seeking to style itself UCLA - University of Central [=LAncashire=]. While the chances of Preston being confused with Los Angeles are vanishingly small - save by those who seriously failed Geography - legal advice suggested [[OurLawyersAdvisedThisTrope that a small case "n" should be added]]. The "n", in the form "[=UCLAn=]", is very small and inobtrusive. [[/note]]

* Kingston (formerly Kingston Poly) - that's Kingston in south-west London, not Kingston-upon-Hull. Has a good reputation for art, design and fashion.

* Middlesex University (formerly Middlesex Polytechnic). Widely regarded as the top ''modern'' university in London. Was once spread across several campuses in North London - indicative of its past as several colleges which merged to form the poly - but is now mostly based at Hendon. It counts Creator/HelenMirren as an alumna - she went to the New College of Speech and Drama, one of several HE institutions which were merged into the current uni.

The ones at the bottom end of the league tables which invariably fill places on their courses through Clearing, the process by which students who have failed to meet the entry requirements for the unis they applied for can shop around and take their chances at a less choosy institution (this always happens after A-level results day, for obvious reasons). Saying you went to one of these is usually embarrassing, although you might get a pass if you're the first member of your family to have gone to university or if you come from a background from which you would hardly expect to go to university at all. Most of them weren't even polytechnics before they became unis, and some of them are located in towns and cities that people wouldn't expect to ''have'' a university - probably because, prior to the 1990s, they didn't.

* Huddersfield (formerly Huddersfield Poly). Huddersfield's another of those places that most people don't realise has a uni. Recent media attention has been entirely due to the fact that its Chancellor was Prince Andrew - who was forced to resign in 2019 following his car-crash of an interview on Creator/TheBBC about his links to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

** PGW has since earned brownie points by buying out, and keeping afloat, the perpetually struggling Wrexham football club, whose Racecourse Ground is slap bang next door to the former tech college campus. This earned the PGW the prestige of hosting Wales' international fixtures on its premises, drawing in football fans from all over the world to pay its admission prices, eat its food, and drink in its bars. Although some locals see dark and sinister intent in the local tech (''nobody'' in Wrexham calls it a "university" - to locals it is still NEWI[[note]]Pron. ''NOW-ee''[[/note]], or just "the tech") buying up a prime building site just next door which currently, inconveniently, has a football club as tenants. Bets were out as to how long the football club will last... until 2021, when Creator/RyanReynolds and Creator/RobMcElhenney [[Series/WelcomeToWrexham bought the club]] (and later funded the club's purchase of the Racecourse).

There are two ag unis that are particularly well know. The Royal Agricultural University, located just outside Cirencester in the heart of the Cotswolds, is known for being the place for the UK's landed gentry to go when they want to learn to look after their estates, so has a reputation for being even posher than the others of this genre - society balls are frequent, and tweed is a common wardrobe choice. Harper Adams in Shropshire is larger, newer and generally seen as a bit more down to Earth, albeit no less wild and drunken. Others include Bishop Burton College ("College" here referring to an institution which offers both degrees and A-levels and equivalent qualifications), Hartpury College and the University of the Highlands and Islands in Scotland (although UHI has a bit of a split personality, being a merger of no less than 13 colleges).

Students' Unions often have night clubs and will bring along people to perform. These tend to be people you've either never heard of or are long past their prime. [[OneHitWonder Chesney Hawkes]] is ''still'' popular on the student circuit [[note]] even though students nowadays weren't even born when "I Am The One And Only" got to number one in the charts[[/note]], along with Aussie soap actors and people from ''Series/BigBrother''. There are often theme nights. Retro 70s/80s nights, foam parties and "School Disco" nights (think an entire collective of female students - and some male ones as well - dressing up as [[SexySchoolwoman Britney Spears in "Baby One More Time"]] and you're heading in very much the right direction) are common as well. Strippers, however, are right out due to Student Unions having what are called "Safe and Comfortable" policies.

* Students' Unions have a bad record for standing up for their actual students - this is slowly improving in places, but those involved in SU politics have all too often been found working towards their own future political career rather than campaigning on issues that bear directly on students. Being President of the NUS, or even President on your uni's SU, is seen as a pretty good step towards becoming a senior politician (particularly in the Labour Party, given the lefty nature of student politics[[note]] the best-known example is Jack Straw, who was NUS President in TheSixties and later a Cabinet minister in the [[UsefulNotes/TonyBlair Blair]] government[[/note]]).
* SU elections often turn into something of a circus, with joke candidates outnumbering real ones, low turnouts due to extreme apathy on the part of most students (unless there's a high-profile local or national issue affecting students - and sometimes ''not even then'', as the SU's power to influence such matters invariably tends to be limited) and the threat of re-opening nominations if enough people vote for the mandatory "re-open nominations" ballot option. "RON" often has its own campaign, which sometimes personifies the concept as a real or fictional person, an animal or a cuddly toy.

There are two ag unis that are particularly well know. The Royal Agricultural University, located just outside Cirencester in the heart of the Cotswolds, is known for being the place for the UK's landed gentry to go when they want to learn to look after their estates, so has a reputation for being even posher than the others of this genre - society balls are frequent, and tweed is a common wardrobe choice. Harper Adams in Shropshire is larger, newer and generally seen as a bit more down to Earth, albeit no less wild and drunken. Others include Bishop Burton College, Hartpury College and the University of the Highlands and Islands in Scotland (although UHI has a bit of a split personality, being a merger of no less than 13 colleges).

* The University of Sheffield: Last of the six 'red bricks'. Its royal charter was granted in 1905 as it was formed from three colleges.

* University of Edinburgh: Founded 1582 (by Royal Charter; the Reformation having happened in 1560). The only non-Oxbridge British university to produce a [[UsefulNotes/TheMenOfDowningStreet Prime Minister]] (UsefulNotes/TheViscountPalmerston, the UsefulNotes/EarlRussell,[[note]]Who matriculated but did not graduate[[/note]] and UsefulNotes/GordonBrown); all other [=PMs=] either went to Oxbridge, didn't go to uni, or were [[TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers the Earl of Bute]] (who went to Leiden University in UsefulNotes/TheNetherlands). Has 10 Regius chairs.

** The London Business School, which is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin. It’s mainly focused on providing expensive and prestigious postgraduate business courses, so the alumni list is a who’s who of rich executives. Also has a second campus in [[UsefulNotes/UnitedArabEmirates Dubai]].

** The London Business School.

* Third. AKA a "[[TheAlcoholic Drinker's Degree]]". In essence, you've just wasted much of your three years and about twenty-five grand, as only the lowest tier employers offering precarious jobs will consider you. Unless you got it from [[UsefulNotes/{{Oxbridge}} Oxford or Cambridge]], in which case it's not an ideal result, but still workable, as the cachet will impress some managers. Just ask [[Series/{{Countdown}} Carol Vorderman]], [[Series/TheArmstrongAndMillerShow Alexander Armstrong]], or Alec Douglas-Home (although in the case of all three, they attended university in an era when few went to university, and *any* form of degree was noteworthy - astonishingly few if any people nowadays go on to have successful careers with a third). 2.5, ish. For nicknames, take your pick between "Thora" and "Douglas", respectively rhyming slang with the actress Thora Hird and the politician Douglas Hurd. (Ironically, Douglas Hurd was the only one of the lot to attend a British university for his undergraduate education[[note]]Neither Geoff Hurst nor Thora Hird attended university; as for UsefulNotes/AtillaTheHun, he died several hundred years before the invention of the university or of England, let alone the establishment of Oxford. Archbishop Tutu did go to King's College London, but to that was for a graduate program in theology; he did his undergraduate work in South Africa.[[/note]]—and he got a First in History at Cambridge.)

* Pass. AKA "Ordinary Degree" (as opposed to the Honours Degree you were aiming for). Usually means that something went very badly wrong indeed. You fell in love and he/she blew you off and you lapsed into depression and stopped going to class. Or you became an AddledAddict and spent the several years of uni in a [[TheStoner drugged haze]]. It means you have to write it as just [=BSc=] instead of [=BSc=] Hons. 2.0. Oxford traditionally listed this as Fourth Class, but very few holders of a fourth class degree are still alive. You might find yourself working as a café barista or call center with a uni result like that. Note that not all universities have this: some just have a Third as the lowest grade, and below that nothing is awarded.

* Third. AKA a "[[TheAlcoholic Drinker's Degree]]". In essence, you've just wasted much of your three years and about twenty-five grand, as only the lowest tier employers offering precarious jobs will consider you. Unless you got it from [[UsefulNotes/{{Oxbridge}} Oxford or Cambridge]], in which case it's not an ideal result, but still workable, as the cachet will impress some managers. Just ask [[Series/{{Countdown}} Carol Vorderman]] or [[Series/TheArmstrongAndMillerShow Alexander Armstrong]]). 2.5, ish. For nicknames, take your pick between "Thora" and "Douglas", respectively rhyming slang with the actress Thora Hird and the politician Douglas Hurd. (Ironically, Douglas Hurd was the only one of the lot to attend a British university for his undergraduate education[[note]]Neither Geoff Hurst nor Thora Hird attended university; as for UsefulNotes/AtillaTheHun, he died several hundred years before the invention of the university or of England, let alone the establishment of Oxford. Archbishop Tutu did go to King's College London, but to that was for a graduate program in theology; he did his undergraduate work in South Africa.[[/note]]—and he got a First in History at Cambridge.)
* Pass. AKA "Ordinary Degree" (as opposed to the Honours Degree you were aiming for). Usually means that something went very badly wrong indeed. You fell in love and he/she blew you off and you lapsed into depression and stopped going to class. Or you became an AddledAddict and spent the several years of uni in a [[TheStoner drugged haze]]. It means you have to write it as just [=BSc=] instead of [=BSc=] Hons. 2.0. Oxford traditionally listed this as Fourth Class, but very few holders of a fourth class degree are still alive. You might find yourself working as a café barista or call center with a uni result like that.

Note also that in the UK, dental surgeons are NOT awarded the courtesy title 'Doctor'. [[note]]Though this seems to be changing. My previous dentist was a plain Mrs, her successor is a Dr, but is a plain Batchelor of Dental Surgery.[[/note]] The same was true for veterinary surgeons until 2015, when the country's veterinary association allowed vets to use the title, mainly to match with international practise.[[note]]In North America and continental Europe, the veterinary degree is a professional doctorate. In Australia, the veterinary degree is an extended undergraduate programme as in the UK, but vets are nonetheless called "Doctor".[[/note]]

* University of St Andrews:[[note]]Please don't be tempted to spell it ''St. Andrew's''; for some reason it's written without any punctuation.[[/note]] Located in the small town of St Andrews, Fife. It's technically collegiate like Oxbridge, but in reality the colleges are more notional (for example, saying you went to St. Mary's College is just a more impressive-sounding way of saying you studied Theology as an undergrad). A RunningJoke in the university is that nobody actually knows when it was founded.[[note]]It's complicated. There's evidence of teaching as early as 1410, but it wasn't officially founded until 1413 by Papal decree, but then UsefulNotes/ThePope in question is retrospectively considered illegitimate, although James I of Scotland ([[UsefulNotes/JamesVIAndI not to be confused]]) upheld the University charter following the healing of the Papal Schism.[[/note]] Just to be on the safe side, the University is sticking with 1413 -- possibly to avoid celebrating the 600th anniversary early. In any case, it's the oldest non-Oxbridge uni in the Anglosphere. The ''[[UsefulNotes/BritishNewspapers Times]]'' currently ranks it as the best university in the UK. Has one Regius chair.

See that entry. The "old college tie" from Cambridgr may not help you as much as it did, but it's still a good thing to have in the job market. Usual offers are A*A*A/A*AA (Scottish students may get away with AAB or even AAC because their school system is different), with many subjects like Maths requiring extra entrance exams.

** King's College, London (KCL). Rather well-known among military historians for its War Studies department. Includes famous medical and nursing schools based at Guys and St. Thomas's Hospital. King's has a long-established rivalry with UCL, whose secularism it was established to counter. Has one of the university's four Regius chairs.

There's ''definitely'' a pecking order when it comes to British Universities, with people trying to get their children into the more desirable, elite ones. Unis will compete to get as high up the published newspaper league tables as possible and acquire high teaching and research scores, and students choose five unis from the list based on their subject and expected grades. This scale is overall reputation, many universities punch above their weight in specific fields, usually those related to local industry (eg Sheffield - Metallurgy, Nottingham - Chemistry, Staffordshire - Ceramics). Similarly, some degrees have only local application - law in Scotland, for instance, means you will be taught ''Scots'' law, not the English law taught at Oxbridge, and so Glasgow and Edinburgh share that particular title. Finally, Oxford, Cambridge, St Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Dublin are called the "ancient" universities, because they are the oldest. This means that they get to appoint "Regius" Professors - "Royal" Professors - who hold appointments created by British monarchs. A Regius professor gets a nice title, and being one is a source of bragging rights among academics. Glasgow currently has the highest number of Regius chairs, at 13.

* University of St Andrews:[[note]]Please don't be tempted to spell it ''St. Andrew's''; for some reason it's written without any punctuation.[[/note]] Located in the small town of St Andrews, Fife. It's technically collegiate like Oxbridge, but in reality the colleges are more notional (for example, saying you went to St. Mary's College is just a more impressive-sounding way of saying you studied Theology as an undergrad). A RunningJoke in the university is that nobody actually knows when it was founded.[[note]]It's complicated. There's evidence of teaching as early as 1410, but it wasn't officially founded until 1413 by Papal decree, but then UsefulNotes/ThePope in question is retrospectively considered illegitimate, although James I of Scotland ([[UsefulNotes/JamesVIAndI not to be confused]]) upheld the University charter following the healing of the Papal Schism.[[/note]] Just to be on the safe side, the University is sticking with 1413 -- possibly to avoid celebrating the 600th anniversary early. In any case, it's the oldest non-Oxbridge uni in the Anglosphere. The ''[[UsefulNotes/BritishNewspapers Times]]'' currently ranks it as the best university in the UK.
** The University of Dundee was formerly one of the colleges but became a university in its own right in 1967.
* University of Glasgow: Founded 1451 by Papal decree.
* University of Aberdeen: Founded 1495, again by Papal decree - originally founded as two separate colleges. This was later merged in the middle of the 19th century to form one university.
* University of Edinburgh: Founded 1582 (by Royal Charter; the Reformation having happened in 1560). The only non-Oxbridge British university to produce a [[UsefulNotes/TheMenOfDowningStreet Prime Minister]] (UsefulNotes/TheViscountPalmerston, the UsefulNotes/EarlRussell,[[note]]Who matriculated but did not graduate[[/note]] and UsefulNotes/GordonBrown); all other [=PMs=] either went to Oxbridge, didn't go to uni, or were [[TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers the Earl of Bute]] (who went to Leiden University in UsefulNotes/TheNetherlands).

** Imperial College, London — officially the Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine. Located in South Kensington and poorly signposted inside. Notable for its focus on the sciences and an ''almost'' complete lack of a humanities department (it has a business school), and the resulting skewed gender ratio. And being the sort of place where people discuss theoretical physics while drinking in the pub. While most London unis clamour to be included as part of the federal University of London or suffer the stigma of being considered unworthy, Imperial decided to actually ''secede'' from the University of London and become independent for its centenary in 2007, which shows how prestigious it is, since being subsumed by the University of London was cramping its style.

** King's College, London (KCL). Rather well-known among military historians for its War Studies department. Includes famous medical and nursing schools based at Guys and St. Thomas's Hospital. King's has a long-established rivalry with UCL, whose secularism it was established to counter.

** Royal Holloway College, London, (RHUL). Known for its [[BigLabyrinthineBuilding vast mock-Gothic]] red-brick main building, often used for filming.
** London School of Economics (LSE) – officially the London School of Economics and Political Science. It also does other stuff, but mostly social sciences and humanities where it is second only to Harvard. Has a reputation for being somewhat aloof but is possessed of a very strong academic reputation. Has many famous alumni and is perhaps unique in producing Prime Ministers of every country aside from its home nation. In fiction however, it did produce [[Series/YesMinister James Hacker]] (PlayedForLaughs in his dealings with Oxonians Sir Humphrey and Bernard, where it is a running joke that the largely Oxford-dominated civil service look down on the LSE) and [[Series/TheWestWing Jed Bartlet]].

* The University of Manchester: A red brick where the nucleus of the atom was discovered and the world's first programmable computer was invented. The largest single-campus university in the UK. Merged in 2004 with the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST), a large and well-respected institution in its own right. The student union has its own [[http://www.manchesteracademy.net/ nightclub]] with spaces for three gigs to run simultaneously (and they usually do). Over the years it's played host to Music/{{Gorillaz}}, Music/{{Pulp}}, The Music/FlamingLips, Music/KingsOfLeon, Music/KylieMinogue, Music/{{Radiohead}}, ''Music/{{Nirvana}}''... The Hall of Fame reads like a [[http://www.manchesteracademy.net/Hall%20of%20Fame/hfindx.html who's who of music]].

* The University of Liverpool: Not the original red-brick, but the origin of ''the term itself'' with regard to the original Victoria Building. Recently caused outrage by proposing to get rid of up to nine high-profile subjects on rather suspect evidence.

* Cardiff University: The Largest University in Wales. Part of The Russell Group of Universities, which means it gets prestigious research projects because, err... because it's part of the Russell Group. A good mix of hands on work and academic study, and no campus: Individual campuses and halls of residence are scattered across the city, making it almost impossible to go from one to the other without passing at least one pub. This is understandably popular.
* Queen's University Belfast: The older of the two universities in Northern Ireland. Originally a college of the Royal University of Ireland until [[UsefulNotes/TheIrishQuestion things happened]]. Part of the Russell Group and alma mater to the likes of Seamus Heaney and Liam Neeson. More traditionally academic than its other Northern Irish counterpart, the University of Ulster. Somewhat unsurprisingly, tends to get the majority of school leavers from Northern Ireland, especially since it decided to set its tuition fees at £6000 rather than the £9000 trend everywhere else in the UK.

* The University of Southampton: Well known for engineering in particular with every one of its engineering departments being rated in the top 5 in the country. Also known as the home of the National Oceanography Centre. Not to be confused with the ''other'' university in Southampton, Solent, which was rated as the worst in the country in 2008.

* Aston. Located in Birmingham city centre, it was originally founded as the Birmingham Municipal Technical School in 1895, it was granted university status in the 1960s. Its business school has an excellent reputation. Also known for Chancellor's Lake, which is home to some truly and utterly vicious geese.

* Essex. Home to one of the best Politics departments in the country, its most famous member being Anthony King, regular TV commentator on British elections.

* Surrey. Located in Guildford. A 1960s birth that was named University of the Year for 2016. It scores highly for student satisfaction, which could suggest that little studying takes place -- but instead maybe the satisfaction is with the teaching and course. Also home to the Surrey Sports Park (2012 Olympic training centre) and BBC Surrey, as well as the AQA (publicly-despised exams board) headquarters.

* Warwick. Often compared in appearance to a public lavatory. It is actually located miles away in Coventry, and has nothing to do with the town of Warwick. Has the highest standards for Mathematics, requiring the highest grades and students to pass an additional exam for admission. It also has a highly-respected business school.

Somewhere in the middle of all this is the Open University. Think degree via correspondence course and online stuff, although it is a LOT more demanding than most correspondence courses. More than a few people have taken up OU courses just to try and get on ''Series/UniversityChallenge'' (which the OU has won twice). Largest in the country in terms of number of students; in 2020, over 175,000 were enrolled, including about a third of new undergraduates aged under 25. It's well-remembered for monopolizing weekend TV on Creator/TheBBC in the 1970s and 80s (mostly on BBC Two, and typically in late-night/early-morning slots), but later moved their TV programmes into the BBC Learning Zone in the wee small hours of BBC Two. Now that the Learning Zone is gone, OU shows can be accessed online via streaming means. Interestingly, it's also fully accredited in the US, making it one of only two British unis with this distinction. The other is the relatively obscure institution known for short as Richmond [[note]] full name: Richmond, The American University in London; not to be confused with the uni in [[UsefulNotes/RichmondVirginia Virginia's capital]][[/note]].

Many universities are referenced in groups depending on what they were founded. The oldest are the Ancient Universities which were all founded between the 12th and 16th Century. There were several founded after that, but before the 'Red Bricks' (London, Wales and Durham). Then there were six 'Red Brick' Unis founded at the turned of the twentieth century before the start of UsefulNotes/WorldWarI. Unis chartered in the 1960s are plate glass universities, and finally there are the new Unis that were founded in the 1990s onwards from polytechnics or higher education colleges.

Note also that in the UK, dental surgeons are NOT awarded the courtesy title 'Doctor'. The same was true for veterinary surgeons until 2015, when the country's veterinary association allowed vets to use the title, mainly to match with international practise.[[note]]In North America and continental Europe, the veterinary degree is a professional doctorate. In Australia, the veterinary degree is an extended undergraduate programme as in the UK, but vets are nonetheless called "Doctor".[[/note]]

They can then take academic doctorates in addition. A qualified doctor would therefore not automatically be an "MD", which indicates an additional academic doctorate (i.e. with research and a thesis) in medical science.

There have been increasing complaints in the media about what are perceived as comedy courses, degrees for the sake of it (the Government is trying to get 50% of school-leavers to do a degree, a proposal that has been widely considered an attempt to keep unemployment figures artificially low, keep kids off the streets and raised fears of grade inflation).[[note]]It's actually impossible to achieve without grade inflation, because 50% of school leavers qualify to take A-levels, of which you need three passes to get into uni. In other words, not only would everyone who qualifies for A-levels have to take them but they'd have to pass them all.[[/note]] These include things like Surf Science (even though this degree was needed in the watersports industry as most of the degree is in fact Oceanography with the surf aspect on top to allow better understanding of the issues it faces) and the oft-complained about Psychology (or, worse, Sociology - frequently lampooned in telly like ''Series/TwoPintsOfLagerAndAPacketOfCrisps'') degrees. There are allegedly far more university places to take Media Studies than there are annual jobs in the media industry (Website/TheOtherWiki claims a factor of 43) -- although in actual fact it's relatively easy to spot which media degrees are useful for getting jobs in the industry and which ones aren'. Basically, if it's one that's 90% French critical theory with the option of shooting a five minute film on one of the school's 1995-era VHS camcorders in your final year, move along.

* Third. AKA a "[[TheAlcoholic Drinker's Degree]]". In essence, you've just wasted much of your three years and about twenty-five grand, as only the lowest tier employers offering the most precarious jobs will consider you. Unless you got it from [[UsefulNotes/{{Oxbridge}} Oxford or Cambridge]], in which case it's not an ideal result, but still workable, as the cachet will impress some managers. Just ask [[Series/{{Countdown}} Carol Vorderman]] or [[Series/TheArmstrongAndMillerShow Alexander Armstrong]]). 2.5, ish. For nicknames, take your pick between "Thora" and "Douglas", respectively rhyming slang with the actress Thora Hird and the politician Douglas Hurd. (Ironically, Douglas Hurd was the only one of the lot to attend a British university for his undergraduate education[[note]]Neither Geoff Hurst nor Thora Hird attended university; as for UsefulNotes/AtillaTheHun, he died several hundred years before the invention of the university or of England, let alone the establishment of Oxford. Archbishop Tutu did go to King's College London, but to that was for a graduate program in theology; he did his undergraduate work in South Africa.[[/note]]—and he got a First in History at Cambridge.)
* Pass. AKA "Ordinary Degree" (as opposed to the Honours Degree you were aiming for). Usually means that something went very badly wrong indeed. You fell in love and he/she blew you off and you lapsed into depression snd stopped going to class. Or you became an AddledAddict and spent the several years of uni in a [[TheStoner drugged haze]]. It means you have to write it as just [=BSc=] instead of [=BSc=] Hons. 2.0. Oxford traditionally listed this as Fourth Class, but very few holders of a fourth class degree are still alive. You might find yourself working as a café barista or call center with a uni result like that.

* Lower Second, or 2:2 ("Two-Two"). AKA a "Drinker's First". If you didn't really put much effort into your course, and spent much of time at the pub or engaged in horizontal human sexuality studies, this is about as good as you can hope for. If you ''did'' try your hardest though, it's a soul-crushing affirmation that you weren't really as smart as you thought you were. Roughly equivalent to a 3.0 or a 2.5, depending. Usually nicknamed a "Desmond", after the South African Anglican Archbishop and anti-[[UsefulNotes/TheApartheidEra apartheid]] campaigner UsefulNotes/DesmondTutu.

You can resit any year if you want to better your result or if you failed more than half of your units, but since the student loan people will not fund any whole-year resits except for in the most exceptional circumstances (basically, a serious illness or injury during the course of the year), you have to find the money to do so yourself, or find full-time employment for the next year then turn up in June to sit the exams. Otherwise, it's bye-bye for you.

If you stay on for an extra year, you can get a Master's Degree.

There is also the postgraduate master's degree, typically done over two years, for those who already have one degree. Typically covering more specialised parts of a field the student has already studied as an undergraduate.

Three more years and it's a [=PhD=] (Doctor of Philosophy, even if you do German Literature), with the right to call yourself "Doctor". This requires the publication of a novel piece of research that definitively adds to the sum of human knowledge. The traditional format is a bound volume of the [[{{Doorstopper}} size and weight of an urban telephone directory]] ... but slightly less readable.
You can also become an academic doctor by following a Doctoral programme involving a period of research, repeated publication in learned journals, peer review and, inevitably, a thesis. This is considered harder and more prestigious and earns the title [=DSc=] (Doctor of Sciences), [=DEng=] (Doctor of Engineering) and the like.

* First class honours. As you can probably guess, this is the highest mark you can usually get, though there are some variations such as "First with Merit" for people that get exceptionally high results. Americans should think 4.0. GPA or something very, very close. Especially prestigious in Law, which has the lowest proportion of students achieving firsts. Often nicknamed a "Geoff", rhyming slang with the former England footballer Geoff Hurst.

Similarly, "college" has several meanings within the British education system, but "uni in general" is ''not'' one of them. In the US, a person going to a state university says "im goung to college". As well, in Britain, people may say someone is "reading law", which means they're in a law program.

"Uni" is the British slang abbreviation for "university", as in "She's off to Uni in September", similar to the way "college" is used in American English.

Unlike their American counterparts, British students ''never'' refer to uni as "school" in conversation. This is the case even when the official name of their institution or department is the School of whatever. In contrast, in the US, people say "I'm in med school" or "I'm going to law school".

Note that academic appointments in the UK do not use the US associate/assistant/full professor form for positions and titles, and hence most faculty members are simply titled "Doctor". "Professor" implies that one holds a particular endowed position (e.g. "The MegaCorp Distinguished Professorship in Biogenetic Research, a positionthat a wealthy donor or big corporation has funded) and so usually indicates a high level of prestige (plus a pay boost).

* Pass. AKA "Ordinary Degree" (as opposed to the Honours Degree you were aiming for). Usually means that something went very badly wrong indeed. You fell in love and he/she blew you off and you lapsed into depression snd stopped going to class. Or you becamean AddledAddict and spent the several years in a [[TheStoner drugged haze]]. It means you have to write it as just [=BSc=] instead of [=BSc=] Hons. 2.0. Oxford traditionally listed this as Fourth Class, but very few holders of a fourth class degree are still alive. You might find yourself working as a café barista or call center with a uni result like that.

For most universities small amounts of marks are awarded for each unit a student sits (which are usually possible to re-sit), and the best combination of these (from second and third year) is selected in order to determine your result. This is supposedly to prevent one bad result in a final year unit from completely torpedoing your degree, although some more cynical types have suggested it's part of the "grade inflation" culture (more on that later). You can resit any year if you want to better your result or if you failed more than half of your units, but since the student loan people will not fund any whole-year resits except for in the most exceptional circumstances (basically, a serious illness or injury during the course of the year), you have to find the money to do so yourself, or find full-time employment for the next year then turn up in June to sit the exams. Otherwise, it's bye-bye for you.

Note that academic appointments in the UK do not use the US associate/assistant/full professor form for positions and titles, and hence most faculty members are simply titled "Doctor". "Professor" implies that one holds a particular endowed position (e.g. "The Wealthy Donor Professorship in Tadpole Psychology") and so usually indicates a fair level of prestige.

Those who attended an American university would find typical undergraduate course requirements for UK universities (at least in the 80s into the 90s) to be very different to the standard US menu that requires taking courses in a wide range of subjects with the notion that it produces a more "rounded" individual. UK universities assumed that students were "rounded" enough by the end of high school, and it was often impossible to take courses outside of the faculty your main subject (the notion of a "major" and "minor" did not exist) was part of. So a science student could take no humanities courses, and vice versa.

There have been increasing complaints in the media about what are perceived as comedy courses, degrees for the sake of it (the Government is trying to get 50% of school-leavers to do a degree, a proposal that has been widely considered an attempt to keep unemployment figures artificially low, keep kids off the streets and raised fears of grade inflation).[[note]]It's actually impossible to achieve without grade inflation, because 50% of school leavers qualify to take A-levels, of which you need three passes to get into uni. In other words, not only would everyone who qualifies for A-levels have to take them but they'd have to pass them all.[[/note]] These include things like Surf Science (even though this degree was desperately needed in the watersports industry as most of the degree is in fact Oceanography with the surf aspect on top to allow better understanding of the issues it faces) and the oft-complained about Psychology (or, worse, Sociology - frequently lampooned in telly like ''Series/TwoPintsOfLagerAndAPacketOfCrisps'') degrees. There are allegedly far more university places to take Media Studies than there are annual jobs in the media industry (Website/TheOtherWiki claims a factor of 43) -- although in actual fact it's relatively easy to spot which media degrees are useful for getting jobs in the industry and which ones aren't (basically, if it's one that's 90% theory with the option of shooting a five minute film on an old VHS camcorder in your final year, move along).

British Universities used to be free to go to. This referred to both tuition and the provision of an annual grant for cost of living and textbooks. The grant was means-tested to some extent, so some cost did fall on the parents of students from more affluent households, but at the low income end, it was possible for students from very poor backgrounds to get through a prestigious university at no cost. They also used to be rather hard to get into. Under the Blair Government, a fee of about £1,000 was introduced to be paid up-front, though this was quite often waived depending on how much a student's parents earned. In 2003, a £3,000 fee was introduced, to be paid after graduation. These were dubbed, accurately or not, "top-up fees". It was highly controversial, with the Labour Government widely being felt to have breached its 2001 Manifesto promise ("We will not introduce top-up fees and in fact have legislated to prevent them"). With a student loan on top of that, you're talking debts on graduation of at least £10,000 (Though realistically speaking, a student can expect to graduate with a debt of £20,000 upwards). As of 2012, tuition fees rose to £9,000 per year, which upset more than a few people - especially as the Liberal Democrats (who'd become the junior party in the coalition government that took office in 2010) had all personally signed pledges not to increase fees during the election campaign. At present (April 2023), the maximum fee than an institution may charge (which most do) stands at £9,250 per year.

There's ''definitely'' a pecking order when it comes to British Universities, with people trying to get their children into the more desirable ones. Unis will compete to get as high up the published newspaper league tables as possible and acquire high teaching and research scores, and students choose five unis from the list based on their subject and expected grades. This scale is overall reputation, many universities punch above their weight in specific fields, usually those related to local industry (eg Sheffield - Metallurgy, Nottingham - Chemistry, Staffordshire - Ceramics). Similarly, some degrees have only local application - law in Scotland, for instance, means you will be taught ''Scots'' law, not the English law taught at Oxbridge, and so Glasgow and Edinburgh share that particular title. Finally, Oxford, Cambridge, St Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Dublin are called the "ancient" universities, because they are the oldest. This means that they get to appoint "Regius" Professors - "Royal" Professors - who hold appointments created by British monarchs. A Regius professor gets a nice title, and being one is a source of bragging rights among academics. Glasgow currently has the highest number of Regius chairs, at 13.

See that entry. The "old college tie" may not help you as much as it did, but it's still a good thing to have. Usual offers are A*A*A/A*AA (Scottish students may get away with AAB or even AAC because their school system is different), with many subjects like Maths requiring extra entrance exams.

Unlike their American counterparts, British students ''never'' refer to uni as "school" in conversation. This is the case even when the official name of their institution or department is the School of whatever. Similarly, "college" has several meanings within the British education system, but "uni in general" is ''not'' one of them.

British students doing an undergraduate degree will spend three or four years (Four years is standard in Scotland, and some degrees add an extra year of professional placements and workplace training) and often come out with a BA (Bachelor of Arts), [=BEng=] (Bachelor of Engineering), LLB (''Legum Baccalaureus'' - Bachelor of Laws) or [=BSc=] (Bachelor of Science, not [[Series/RedDwarf Bronze Swimming Certificate]]) (and, very rarely, [=BEd=] (Bachelor of Education, but those are an unpopular and rapidly vanishing route into teaching). There are five levels of degree pass:

* Lower Second, or 2:2 ("Two-Two"). AKA a "Drinker's First". If you didn't really put much effort into your course, this is about as good as you can hope for. If you ''did'' try your hardest though, it's a soul-crushing affirmation that you weren't really as good as you thought you were. Roughly equivalent to a 3.0 or a 2.5, depending. Usually nicknamed a "Desmond", after the South African Anglican Archbishop and anti-[[UsefulNotes/TheApartheidEra apartheid]] campaigner UsefulNotes/DesmondTutu.
* Third. AKA a "Drinker's Degree". In essence, you've just wasted three years and about twenty-five grand. Unless you got it from [[UsefulNotes/{{Oxbridge}} Oxford or Cambridge]], in which case it's definitely not an ideal result, but still workable (just ask [[Series/{{Countdown}} Carol Vorderman]] or [[Series/TheArmstrongAndMillerShow Alexander Armstrong]]). 2.5, ish. For nicknames, take your pick between "Thora" and "Douglas", respectively rhyming slang with the actress Thora Hird and the politician Douglas Hurd. (Ironically, Douglas Hurd was the only one of the lot to attend a British university for his undergraduate education[[note]]Neither Geoff Hurst nor Thora Hird attended university; as for UsefulNotes/AtillaTheHun, he died several hundred years before the invention of the university or of England, let alone the establishment of Oxford. Archbishop Tutu did go to King's College London, but to that was for a graduate program in theology; he did his undergraduate work in South Africa.[[/note]]—and he got a First in History at Cambridge.)
* Pass. AKA "Ordinary Degree" (as opposed to the Honours Degree you were aiming for). Usually means that something went very badly wrong indeed. Means you have to write it as just [=BSc=] instead of [=BSc=] Hons. 2.0. Oxford traditionally listed this as Fourth Class, but very few holders of a fourth class degree are still alive.

* The University of Birmingham: The original 'Red Brick' University. Has the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Chamberlain_Memorial_Clock_Tower tallest clocktower in the world]], though no one seems to be quite sure HOW tall.

** PGW has since earned brownie points by buying out, and keeping afloat, the perpetually struggling Wrexham football club, whose Racecourse Ground is slap bang next door to the former tech college campus. This earns the PGW the prestige of hosting Wales' international fixtures on its premises, drawing in football fans from all over the world to pay its admission prices, eat its food, and drink in its bars. Although some locals see dark and sinister intent in the local tech (''nobody'' in Wrexham calls it a "university" - to locals it is still NEWI[[note]]Pron. ''NOW-ee''[[/note]], or just "the tech") buying up a prime building site just next door which currently, inconveniently, has a football club as tenants. Bets were out as to how long the football club will last... until 2021, when Creator/RyanReynolds and Creator/RobMcElhenney [[Series/WelcomeToWrexham bought the club]] (and later funded the club's purchase of the Racecourse).