Shropshire Star comment: University table just deceiving

Your teachers and your school are proud, and see it as a feather in their cap to have got a pupil into those temples of higher education, Oxford University and Cambridge University, which have such status and enjoy international reputations.

Other universities are available. And those other universities offer tremendous opportunities as well.

In our region, they mean young people have a route to excellence, high achievement and skills, on their doorstep.

There is good news in the Complete University Guide national league table for Harper Adams University – the former Harper Adams Agricultural College – near Newport, as it climbed up the table, from 48th to 27th.

In the West Midlands, it is now ranked only behind the University of Birmingham, and of Warwick.

At the other end of the table, Wolverhampton university has climbed five places, which is good news, but it is still 124th out of 131 institutions.

It is absolutely vital this is seen in the context of what universities are trying to do, and who they are serving and aiming to serve.

Harper Adams is a specialist university for students looking for careers in farming, land management, animal sciences and so on.

It attracts, and caters for, students who will in many cases have a degree of knowledge or experience in their chosen field, and have a clear-sighted vision of where they want to end up.

Wolverhampton scored low on entry standards, meaning a large number of undergraduate students joined with a low Universities and Colleges Admissions Service tariff score.

It is tough for an opportunities-for-all approach to be counted against it, for teenagers who may have come from disadvantaged backgrounds to be given the chance of a university education is something to be applauded.

A student in a crowded state school studying amid disruptive fellow students and scoring Cs or Ds at A-level has much to offer.

Had they been in a private school with motivated students and 12 in a class they would undoubtedly be achieving far better grades.

It is only right that Wolverhampton University helps students to truly fulfil their potential.