Our Scottish University of the Year in 2021, Glasgow’s ambitious development plan is making space for a growing student community. The demand for places increased by 16 per cent in the 2021 admissions round, year-on-year. Enrolments edged up by just 2 per cent in the same cycle but are up by half in the past decade. 

Providing plenty of legroom for studying, the £90.6 million James McCune Smith learning hub opened in 2021. The building can accommodate more than 2,500 students and combines flexible study and social learning areas with interactive teaching spaces.

Glasgow’s imposing gothic revival buildings on the Gilmorehill campus are a landmark in the city’s fashionable West End, where the university has been based since 1871. Glasgow has its own museum — the Hunterian — at Gilmorehill, with collections of art, zoology and anatomy.

The spacious Garscube campus, four miles from Gilmorehill in the northwest of the city, hosts the veterinary school and outdoor sports pitches. Liberal arts and teaching courses are delivered in Dumfries, where more than £13 million has been spent on sporting and social facilities.

Glasgow scored highly with its students during the pandemic, compared with most other institutions, boosting its scores for student satisfaction with the wider undergraduate experience to 24th place in our analysis of the National Student Survey in 2021. A year on, however, Glasgow falls to 67= on that measure  and 92= for satisfaction with teaching quality. 

The university’s only graduate apprenticeship (known as degree apprenticeships south of the border) is a four-year programme in software engineering designed with local employers to create a talent pipeline of graduates with skills tailored to industry needs. The university is working on projects with more than 300 companies of partnerships worth at least £25 million, giving students the opportunity to learn from professionals. Glasgow’s Internship Hub works with more than 150 organisations locally and beyond to provide exclusive placements. Many students are kept on afterwards. Glasgow’s School of Culture and Creative Arts, Scotland’s leading centre for music research, offers opportunities for student placements within the city’s legendary music scene. 

Glasgow has improved its graduate prospects year-on-year to reach the top 30 for the proportion of those in highly skilled work or postgraduate study after 15 months (29th).  More than a quarter of undergraduates are from outside the UK and Glasgow has a branch campus in Singapore, working with the Singapore Institute of Technology, and a joint graduate school with Nankai University in northeastern China.

Four-year courses are the norm in Scotland but students from the rest of the UK will find their fourth-year tuition fees waived on the majority of degree courses. There are access bursaries of £1,000 to £3,000 per year of study for students from England, Wales and Northern Ireland from low-income households.

Social inclusion is a challenge for Glasgow, which has a relatively low proportion of students from non-selective state schools (78.3 per cent). However, it boasts the lowest black achievement gap in Scotland.

Glasgow tends to increase its contextual offers each year for eligible students who have completed an accredited pre-entry programme, have been in care, are refugees or seeking asylum or are estranged from their family. However, most Glasgow students (74 per cent) come from families with a history of university education.

One-to-one counselling appointments are available and a peer wellbeing support scheme is in place linking trained students with those seeking help for mild mental health issues. The university’s SafeZone app is at the ready for students who get lost, need to report an emergency or require first aid.

The university has more than 3,400 residential places, enough to guarantee accommodation for new undergraduates. Glasgow’s sports union supports more than 50 clubs and activities and there are purpose-built sports facilities on the Gilmorehill and Garscube campuses. The Stevenson Building on the Gilmorehill campus includes a 25m swimming pool, indoor cycle studio, squash courts and a strength and conditioning suite. At Garscube students have access to all-weather and grass pitches as well as a cricket oval and tennis courts. 

Scotland’s biggest metropolis has five universities and was crowned the world’s friendliest and most affordable city by Time Out in 2019. It was also the first in the UK to be named a Unesco City of Music.