Overview

The university recruits more than half of its intake of UK students from within its home patch in the North West. Many are drawn from groups under-represented in higher education. Just under a third of last year’s intake were mature returners to education, and Chester has one of the highest proportions of students who are the first in their immediate family to attend university. Sophisticated support structures – acknowledged by good scores in this area in the National Student Survey and coming second in the 2024 Whatuni Student Choice University of the Year award – keep students in the fold. Progression and degree completion rates are at much higher levels than are the norm with such a diverse intake. The university is largely based in the attractive walled city of Chester, but it has outposts in Birkenhead and Warrington, as well as its land-based centre Reaseheath, near Nantwich. Employers help with the design of courses, which all have a focus on digital skills and use continuous assessment to gauge student achievement. 

Paying the bills

Bursaries are now paid only to carers, those who have spent time in care, estranged students and members of the gypsy, Roma, traveller, showman and boater community. However, the university is unusual in paying between £10 and £30 towards travel expenses for everyone who attends a Chester applicant day. It also offers a travel bursary of up to £100 to anyone attending a university outreach event who is in receipt of free school meals, pupil premium, or benefits for low income or disability, as well as those who have been in care, are carers or are estranged. A student support fund is available for those who get into financial difficulty while studying, too. The cheapest university-owned accommodation comes in at £4,420 for a 40-week contract, rising to a maximum of £6,680. Chester is one of a small number of universities to offer catered accommodation, which costs between £7,391 and £7,581 for 38 weeks full-board.

What’s new?

Chester, founded in 1839, was the UK’s first teacher training college, and this month it moves its school of education back to its Exton Park site in Chester, into the fully refurbished Molloy Hall. The new facilities will include laboratories, an art and design space and preparation rooms for training the next generation of teachers. There will be direct access from the school to the Seaborne library next door, which has undergone its own refurbishment to equip it with the latest digital technology, as well as private and collaborative study spaces, social zones, seminar rooms and media suites. The Sumner House student accommodation block has also been upgraded to provide 125 ensuite rooms and communal social areas. Teaching has been reorganised into three faculties this year: arts, humanities and social sciences; health, medicine and society; and science, business and enterprise. The university hopes this will drive the development of degrees and modules with student employability at their core. New courses taking their first students this month include criminology and sociology in combination with a second subject, as well as acting, drama, fashion design, film and media, media and TV production, music production and popular music performance, which are all offered with foundation years. 

Admissions, teaching and student support

Chester has one of the highest proportions of first-generation students (those whose parents did not go to university) of any institution and its admissions policies ensure that it will continue to attract students from under-represented groups. Although it does make contextual offers with at least one A-level grade (or equivalent) below the standard entry requirement, the university told us: ‘We consider a wide range of factors to identify merit, rather than academic attainment alone.’ Having attracted students from this wider range of backgrounds, Chester then deploys a ‘whole student lifestyle approach’ which provides enhanced support throughout students’ time at Chester and beyond. Wellbeing and mental health advisers run workshops and sessions, while student support networks help people from certain groups connect with others. A student assistance programme (SAP) also offers immediate advice round the clock, every day of the year, and has a language line that allows students to talk via an interpreter in their own tongue. Students are encouraged to undertake bystander intervention training as part of a wider range of initiatives to create a safe campus environment. Although in-person teaching has returned across all courses following the Covid pandemic, the university is now among a minority where lecture capture is not routinely available to allow students to listen back to content in their own time.