By Natalie Gil. Most students now take on some paid work while at university.
More students now work to fund their studies, new research shows, with the number of working students now standing at 59%. Read more...

By Abby Young-Powell and Natalie Gil. The universities of Belfast, St Andrews, Keele and Bath were all among the top for student satisfaction.
The universities with the highest satisfaction rates recorded are St Mary's University College, part of Queen's University of Belfast, the University of St Andrews, Keele University and the University of Bath. Read more...

By Lucy Hodges. Subjects with vocational elements such as nursing and business studies are becoming ever-more popular. The most popular subjects to study at university are those that give students a clear route into work – nursing and business studies, according to Ucas figures. Read more...

By Richard Adams. But study finds pupils from wealthy backgrounds still far more likely to go to university. The raising of tuition fees to £9,000 has not put off students from disadvantaged backgrounds from applying to university – although the gap in applications between those from wealthy and poor backgrounds remains wide, according to new analysis. Read more...

The first woman to win the prestigious Fields Medal prize discusses her life as a mathematician.
Maryam Mirzakhani has become the first woman to win the Fields Medal, the most prestigious prize in mathematics. Mirzakhani, 37, is of Iranian descent and completed her PhD at Harvard in 2004. Her thesis showed how to compute the Weil-Petersson volumes of moduli spaces of bordered Riemann surfaces. Her research interests include Teichmüller theory, hyperbolic geometry, ergodic theory, and symplectic geometry. She is currently professor of mathematics at Stanford University, and predominantly works on geometric structures on surfaces and their deformations.
What are some of your earliest memories of mathematics?
As a kid, I dreamt of becoming a writer. My most exciting pastime was reading novels; in fact, I would read anything I could find. I never thought I would pursue mathematics until my last year in high school. I grew up in a family with three siblings. My parents were always very supportive and encouraging. It was important for them that we have meaningful and satisfying professions, but they didn't care as much about success and achievement. Read more...

By Bashir Makhoul. Universities need to work together and increase outreach work to help more disadvantaged students enter higher education. The numbers of disadvantaged young people in full-time higher education have risen in the past two years, yet today's report by the Independent Commission on Fees makes it abundantly clear that there are few causes for celebration. Read more...

By Sam Howison. Almost half of maths undergraduates are now women, but winning recognition at the very top of the profession has been a battle. Finally, after more than 50 male winners, a Fields Medal goes to a woman mathematician, Maryam Mirzakhani. If you tossed a coin 51 times, your probability of 50 tails then a head would be less than one in 2,250,000,000,000,000; but nowadays close to half of maths undergraduates are women. That is a pretty stark juxtaposition. Does Mirzakhani’s success mark a turning point in the battle for women to gain more recognition in mathematics? Read more...

By Pat Thomson. We are neither expats nor migrated scholars, but double-sided people who bring a competitive edge to British universities. Academics are now highly mobile. We are internationally-focused. Even if our research is highly localised, we are very mindful of the need to foster international conversations, networks and partnerships, and publications. Read more...

By Miles Brignall. Leicester is rated most affordable and, outside London, Oxford the most expensive, according to research by HSBC.
The research, published as students received their A-level results and discovered which university they would be studying at, found freshers heading off to the Midlands city can expect to spend an average of £196 a week on rent and living costs, compared to more than £315 for those attending UCL or Imperial College in the capital. Read more...

By Graham Whitaker. Your editorial and associated article (11 August) on the position of the Warburg Institute in relation to the University of London do not fully reflect one feature of the institute. It consists of the library, the photographic collection and the archive, all representative of the Aby Warburg legacy. The third of these is also a cultural treasure, reflecting not only the history and development of the institute both in London and before but also cultural life in Europe and, after the 1933 move to London, in Britain. Its holdings reveal the effort expended by the director, Fritz Saxl, Edgar Wind and other members of the staff in negotiating the transfer from Germany and establishing the institute in its new location. Read more...