Tell us what you love (or loathe) about your institution. What’s the best thing about working at your university? How do your colleagues and managers make you feel valued? In what areas do you need more support? These are among the questions we will be asking in the inaugural Times Higher Education Best University Workplace survey, which is online now. Read more...

By Cristina Odone. We are nervously awaiting the 18-year-old’s A-level results. Not as nervously, however, as if he had chosen, as many of his friends have done, to try for an American university. The latest news from elite campuses across the Atlantic struck fear in our hearts: everyone is “hooking up” over there, and that’s bad. Hook-up culture is about sexual encounters that are rushed, unemotional and brief. It sounds depressingly familiar – “wham, bam, thank you ma’am”, we called it when I was an undergraduate – but what makes hook-up culture different is its raison d’être: students today are too busy for relationships. And, unlike the no-strings sex of yesteryear, women as well as men are choosing a hook-up over proper dating. The bleak new thinking was exposed in a New York Times investigation last week. Read more...

By Rozina Sabur. A competitive jobs market and the value placed on the ubiquitous ‘2:1’ can make ending up with a 2:2 seem a very difficult position. Graduate recruitment sites can make you feel sub-standard if you don’t possess the required grade for the employers they promote. There are, however, several routes open to graduates. Read more...

By Agencies. Students from a wealthier background are more likely to go to one of the country's top universities than those from poorer families, official figures reveal. Richer pupils are twice as likely to go to one of the UK's top universities than those from the poorest homes, according to new figures. Teenagers who are eligible for free school meals (FSM) - a key measure of poverty - are also still slightly less likely to go to any university, or to go on to work or training, the data shows. Read more...