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Overview
Formed in the 1960s, the University of Kent borrowed its collegiate structure from an older generation of universities. Students join one of eight colleges, the majority named after people who pushed back the boundaries of knowledge – Sir Charles Darwin, Alan Turing, Lord Rutherford to name three. The colleges form the social heart of the student experience, breaking down this mid-sized university of around 15,000 undergraduates into bite-sized chunks. Seven of the colleges are on the university’s original campus, a green 300-acre site in the historic city of Canterbury, with the eighth, Medway College, on Kent’s Medway campus, shared with Canterbury Christ Church and Greenwich universities, which takes in the historic Royal Naval dockyards in Chatham. Applications are down by nearly a third from their peak in 2016, but the university achieves admirable diversity on campus. Black students made up almost one quarter of the undergraduate intake last year, with more than 40% overall drawn from ethnic minorities. Partnerships with local schools and colleges help maintain high numbers of students drawn from under-represented groups.
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Paying the bills
The Kent Financial Support Package targets students from homes with an income of less than £30,000. They must also meet one of several further criteria, which include living in a postcode among those with the smallest numbers progressing to university; living in one of the 40% of postcodes with the highest levels of deprivation; being in receipt of Disabled Students’ Allowance; or being a mature student. Those who qualify get £1,000 for each year of study. There are music and sport scholarships, with the latter being worth between £300 and £5,000 a year to support access to facilities, preparation and participation in sport. The Ros and Andrew Holden STEM scholarship pays all tuition fees (worth £27,750) and provides maintenance support of more than £2,300 a year to one student from the county of Kent taking a science, technology, engineering or maths degree who can demonstrate financial need. There are more than 6,000 rooms in university accommodation available, with self-catering prices beginning at £5,034 for 39 weeks in the largest and newest college, Park Wood. Catered accommodation is offered, too, with Eliot and Rutherford colleges pricing rooms from £5,905 for a 37-week contract.
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What’s new?
A new strategic plan, Kent 2030, will see significant changes to the full portfolio of Kent degrees over the next six years. ‘We need to introduce greater flexibility for our students to be able to fit study around other activity like work or caring responsibilities, and we need to build in better links with industry in our courses to enhance our students’ employability prospects,’ the university told us. The latter should help improve the proportion of graduates getting high-skilled jobs, which is the university’s second-worst performing metric in our ranking this year, beaten to bottom place by former students feeling their careers are not on track, when questioned 15 months after graduating. For the beginning of the 2025-26 academic year the university is looking to introduce a three-term year for undergraduate courses, with simpler module choices and assessment spread throughout the year. It wants future assessments to be more relevant to the tasks students will face in their careers, and it is considering the introduction of block timetabling to concentrate teaching on particular days and make it easier to fit studying around other commitments. The university wants to grow in key areas such as computing, law and biosciences, while preserving the strength and breadth of its course portfolio in areas such as English, history and the arts.
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Admissions, teaching and student support
Kent’s admissions policies reflect its new marketing handle: ‘We stand for ambition’. Outreach policies seek to raise aspirations and attainment, helping students from non-traditional backgrounds to apply for university. Kent works directly with more than 50 non-selective secondary schools and three further education college groups across Kent and Medway. Contextual offers generally cut two grades from the standard admissions requirements; they’re offered in all subjects, but the qualifying criteria vary. Around one in eight students last September came to Kent via a contextual offer. In addition to financial aid, Kent helps those from disadvantaged backgrounds with the transition to university and offers a tailored programme of academic advice, skills development sessions and enhanced career preparation support. Mental health and wellbeing support features a daily drop-in service for students in crisis and a team of advisers, counsellors, mentors and specialist staff. There is dedicated assistance available for students with autism and other neurodiversity conditions. Kent is one of the proactive minority of universities that requires all students to complete an Expect Respect module before joining. This covers sexual consent, being an active bystander and racial, sexual and social tolerance.