Students line up to rate their universities

Six out of 10 final-year students have taken part in the biggest ever survey of student opinion, disclosing in detail how they rate their academic experience at university.

The survey, which was ordered by the government when top-up fees were legislated for, is designed to give applicants to university in 2006 an in-depth description of what they are going into, as described by their peers.

Some 170,000 final year undergraduates in 141 universities and colleges in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, have answered questions such as "how good are staff at explaining things" and "how good are facilities?"

The 60% response rate is 10 percentage points higher than the target set for the first National Student Survey. The full findings will be published this September. The outcome will be published in September 2005 on the Teaching Quality Information website and will provide a range of information about teaching quality. For each subject area at each higher education institution information will include statistics about students' entry profiles, completion rates, classes of degree achieved, and employment after graduation. There will also be reports by institutions and their external examiners about quality and standards.

Dr Liz Beaty, director of learning and teaching at the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce), said: "We would like to thank all institutions, student unions and students for helping to achieve this impressive response rate. Their contribution means that prospective students, their parents and advisers can now have confidence in the results.

"Applicants to higher education will have the views of final-year students to help them choose between courses and institutions that best suit their needs and interests, alongside a range of other information available on the TQI web-site."

Hannah Essex, the National Union of Students' vice president for education, said: "We are delighted that there has been such a good response rate. It is so important that students have the opportunity to feedback to others about their courses.

"Our members are very keen to continue to be involved to ensure that this survey develops as an invaluable, comprehensive and useful resource for students and universities alike."

The survey was conducted by the independent market research company Ipsos UK. Sam McGuire, director of Ipsos public affairs, said: "The target response rate of 50% has been surpassed at levels as high as 70% in some institutions."