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The News of the World can reveal that EVERY member of the armed forces who has completed six years’ service will have their tuition fees paid by the government.
The fees—which can add around £9,000 to the cost of a three-year degree—will be paid regardless of whether they stay in the Services.
Those who do not want degrees can get free college courses to study for GCSEs, A-levels or other skills courses.
A Ministry of Defence source said: “We are fighting two major wars and need to reward people for their service. This has no strings attached.”
The scheme is designed to help people leaving the military, although serving soldiers will also be able fund part-time degrees.
The offer will be transferrable to spouses of veteran soldiers killed in action, enabling them to get free study as they rebuild their lives.
Would-be gang members in university cities are being told they have to attack and steal from students as part of their initiation.
The existence of the ritual - known as 'bag a student' - in at least two major cities has been identified by academics at Huddersfield University, who are researching the prevalence of crime against students.
The main findings of the research, from the university's Applied Criminology Centre, was that those studying at city universities were far more likely to become victims of robbery than local residents because they were seen as the 'archetypal easy victim'. They warned that universities were failing fully to inform hopeful students about the crime risks because of 'concerns that raising awareness would damage reputations'.
The studies found that criminals aged 16 to 18 thought students were 'naive', 'un-streetwise', carried 'desirable and valuable' goods and were easily identifiable. Many lived in housing estates that bordered deprived areas where locals became jealous of their affluence.
'Offenders said they targeted students because they felt it was easy,' said Michelle Rogerson, one of the researchers. The study has involved work in Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and Birmingham. 'In a few of the cities it was a requirement for gang initiation to "bag a student".'
The grieving parents of a gap year student electrocuted while working as a conservation volunteer in Fiji are calling for tough new safety laws to protect the thousands of British young people who go travelling every year.
As students across the UK prepare to take up placements with specialist gap year companies, Steve and Gill Molnar are warning other parents to check stringent safety procedures are in place before allowing their children to go.
The couple's call comes on the eve of the inquest into the death of their son Luke, 17, whom they claim died as a result of blunders on his £3,000 dream trip to protect coral reefs in the South Pacific. Luke was travelling with Coral Cay Conservation, a company whose president is the renowned conservationist Sir David Bellamy. He died after touching a metal washing line which had been attached to a live electrical wire on which the insulation had worn away.
Nearly 50 per cent of recent science and maths graduates are unhappy because they rarely or never use their science and maths skills in their jobs, according to a recent survey conducted by the Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA).
“Some graduate jobs do rely on having a specific degree and knowledge but an awful lot rely on just having a degree, so many science and maths graduates end up in a generic office job sitting in front of a computer screen and going to meetings,” says John Connolly, head of recruitment at TDA.
The TDA asked 200 science and maths graduates who finished university in the last three years if they felt that their science and maths degrees were relevant to their careers.
These results come out as the TDA are set to launch a campaign to get more maths and science graduates into teaching. The TDA needs about 6,000 science and maths teachers for the next school year and will be in constant need of more as teachers retire.
If you are sports-mad and want to pursue competitive sport as an undergraduate, then Loughborough is the university for you. It is ranked No 1 by the British Universities Sports Association (Busa), ahead of Bath (second) and Birmingham (third).
At the bottom of the rankings are Bath Spa University and the University of East London, followed by two central London institutions: Soas and the University of the Arts.
The positions of these universities are given in the latest sport and recreation table of The Complete University Guide (formerly The Good University Guide), published today, which assesses universities on a range of measures, including swimming pools, cricket pitches, outdoor courts and sports scholarships. "Sport is an area of increasing importance to students when making their university choices, and here they can see at a glance what each university has to offer," says Bernard Kingston, the founder of The Complete University Guide.
Thinking about applying for the UK government graduate scheme - Fast Stream? Listen to some advice from a successful applicant.
Watch a selection of videos from the guardian newspaper, covering a range of topics about work and careers, from how to negotiate a salary rise to what it's actually like working in television.
Those who join the Fast Stream, however, are guaranteed a series of intensive job placements designed to prepare them for senior managerial positions. Fast Streamers move regularly between projects
and sections within their departments; they take up postings in other departments and agencies, they are seconded to Europe,
international partners such as the USA and the world of business. There are also opportunities to enhance Fast Stream careers
by competing for opportunities to study for a professional finance qualification.
A second man charged with the brutal murders of two French students appeared in a London court Monday, where he was remanded in custody.
Daniel Sonnex, 23, stands accused of murdering Laurent Bonomo and Gabriel Ferez, who were found bound, stabbed and burnt in a southeast London flat, as well as perverting the course of justice.
The bodies of the 23-year-old biochemistry students were found in Bonomo's flat on June 29.
At Greenwich Magistrates' Court in south-east London, Sonnex spoke only to confirm his name, address and age.
Yvonne Powell, the chairman of the bench, remanded him in custody until October 20, when he is to appear at England's Old Bailey central criminal court in London.
Nigel Farmer, 33, unemployed and of no fixed address, appeared in court Thursday charged with murdering the students.
He was remanded in custody and is due to appear at the Old Bailey on October 16.
Two men have appeared in court charged with murdering a Norfolk student.
The body of Simon Everitt, 17, of Great Yarmouth, was found buried in woods at Mautby. He died after inhaling petrol.
Jimi Lee Stewart, 24, of Nelson Road Central, Great Yarmouth, and Jonathan Clarke, 19, of Queen Elizabeth Way, Telford, faced Norwich Crown Court.
Maria Chandler, 40, of Lancaster Road, Great Yarmouth, is also charged with murdering Mr Everitt between 6 and 28 June, but did not appear in court.
Jonathan Clarke previously lived at Nelson Road South, Great Yarmouth, the court was told.
A student said to have gone berserk with a knife threatening to kill her next door neighbour after complaints about Amy Winehouse's music blaring out of her council house late at night walked free from court.
Roxanne Rapela, 21, had denied causing criminal damage to the house adjacent to hers in Flanders Court, Egham, and having a bladed article in a public place.
She was cleared by a jury on Thursday after a two-day trial.
But she admitted there was ear-splitting music - blaming it on an ex-boyfriend who was staying with her.
She said: "He was playing Amy Winehouse and singing all night. He does my head in."
Miss Rapela was said to have stormed out of her house in a rage on October 8 and repeatedly slashed her neighbour's front door with a kitchen knife screaming death threats.
There was no mistaking the breadth of Wissam Abuajwa's triumphant smile yesterday as he reached the last passport check at the crossing with Israel on his way out of Gaza for the first time in eight years. When a man has been waiting so long to acquire the qualifications he needs so he can return and do something positive for his own stricken society, it is a moment to savour.
Yet the first words uttered by this polite but determined man after realising at last that he would be able to do his master's at Nottingham University's world-class school of chemical and environmental engineering were ones of almost formal thanks. "I am glad that the UK Government and Mr Kim [the Foreign Office minister, Kim Howells] intervened, and I am happy the Israelis responded to that," he said.
Two weeks after the July 7 suicide bomb attacks that killed 52 London commuters and injured more then 750, Shahid, a young Londoner who had just completed his fourth year at medical school, flew to Pakistan.
As part of his training, Shahid, not his real name, had agreed, his family say, to spend the summer working at the Ziauddin Memorial hospital in Karachi, a city where he has a number of relatives.
On the evening of August 20, while eating with colleagues at a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in the city, witnesses have described how he was approached by three men in civilian clothes and carrying guns who bundled him into a waiting car, and drove off.
The following day, Shahid's father, who we will call Omar, heard about his abduction in a call to the family home in west London. He immediately called his MP, John McDonnell, a family friend of 25 years. McDonnell, Labour MP for Hayes and Harlington, set up the first of a series of meetings with the Foreign Office.
A high-flying student who was told he could not become a doctor because he had a spent burglary conviction has been offered a second chance by a top medical school.
The University of Manchester's medical school have told Majid Ahmed, 18, he will be considered for a place to study there this September, despite initially rejecting him.
Mr Ahmed, from Bradford, West Yorks, lost his appeal earlier this month against a decision by Imperial College London's medical school to deny him a place after they learned that he was convicted of burglary in 2005 and ordered to serve a four-month referral order for community service.
A STUDENT has brought a High Court action alleging he cannot get a place on a medicine undergraduate degree course at an Irish third-level institution because of an "unfair policy" of limiting the number of places for Irish and EU citizens on such courses.
Frank Prendergast secured six As in honours subjects in his Leaving Certificate in 2007 and achieved 550 points, just below the 570 points required to secure a place on a degree course in medicine.
He said he then wrote to the five institutions here that offer medicine, seeking a place on the courses and offered to pay the same fees charged to non-EU students, for whom places are set aside in medical courses.
He claims he was refused a place because the colleges involved are prevented by the Higher Education Authority (HEA) and the Minister for Education from giving EU citizens a place on a medical undergraduate course unless they obtain the required points.
A 21-year-old student and his mother were killed in a car crash as they drove home from his graduation ceremony.
Ben Daleh, and his mother Nadia, 50, died as they travelled back to London after he was awarded a first class Honours degree in economics from Birmingham University.
They both suffered fatal injuries when his mother's silver Saab convertible was hit by a lorry and a Renault Clio in the crash. Ben's father Freddy, 53, who was driving, escaped with only minor injuries.
Philip Peters, speaking on behalf of Ben's friends, said yesterday: "He told me that graduation was the proudest day of his life.
A student at Queen's University Belfast is to receive a global award for research into wireless antennas allowing doctors to monitor illnesses remotely.
Gareth Conway's studies could end unnecessary medical visits within five years, an academic at the university claimed.
Information on a patient's heart rate and other health signals gathered by sensors could be sent to a control unit on the body then accessed by doctors via the internet or mobile phone.
One possible use could monitor firefighters' heartbeat, respiration and movement as they tackle a blaze.
Dr William Scanlon, also involved in the Queen's research project, said: "We could change the way that a range of illnesses, injuries and conditions are monitored, perhaps within five years."
Gareth, from Keady, Co Armagh, receives the accolade in San Diego on Wednesday evening for his research.
The antennas can be fitted almost anywhere on the patient without causing significant inconvenience and are sufficiently low-profile to be incorporated into clothing or worn as part of a wound dressing. They are up to 50 times more efficient than previously-available designs of the same dimensions.
An immigrant who was deported to Nigeria despite being honoured by the Church of England for his contribution to British society has been given the right to return to the UK.
In a change of heart by the Government, Damilola Ajagbonna, 20, has had his case reconsidered by the Home Office and been granted a temporary residency to live here.
Mr Ajagbonna came to Britain with his mother when he was 11 and only discovered that he was an illegal immigrant and faced deportation after he was accepted for places at universities in Cambridge and Sheffield. His achievements in education and community work have won him acclaim from both teachers and immigration campaigners.
A pensioner has been named "the worst student in the world" after failing school exams for the last 38 years.
Shiv Charan, 74, who vowed as a boy he would not marry until he passes, said: "I will go on in order to get a wife."
Asked whom he would marry, he said: "Only a girl below 30."
Shiv did pass one exam in Hindi but failed with India's hard Year 10 papers in English, science, maths and Sanskrit.
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A Rajasthan neighbour of Shiv's said: "We really want him to pass but he's probably the world's worst student."
JUST eight days after being banned for three years, a 22 year old Blackburn student was caught behind the wheel.
Blackburn magistrates heard that Asif Bangue was estimated to have been doing 70 mph in a 30 mph zone in Bolton Road, Darwen.
As he tried to escape from police Bangue undertook a vehicle doing about 50 mph in Lower Eccleshill Road.
The court was told the incident took place at 11am when the roads were fairly busy and the pursuit went through several busy junctions as well as past a school, houses and shops.
And when he was interviewed by police Bangue said he was not driving dangerously.
“If I had been taking my test I would have passed with flying colours,” he said.
A 22-year-old British student who was caught smuggling millions of dollars worth of cocaine out of the country was offered $3 million bail Tuesday.
Naomi Williams of London was arrested at the Norman Manley International Airport last month while preparing to board a flight to England.
The narcotics police say three pounds of cocaine which is worth millions on the streets in England was found in her luggage.
When captured Ms Williams, a student at a University in England said nothing.
Tuesday, she clutched a Bible while her attorney Lancelot Clarke applied for bail.
Senior Magistrate Glen Brown had initially offered bail amounting to $5 million but reduced the figure to $3 million at the request of her attorney.
She is to return to court on September 3.
FOREIGN students have been warned to stay indoors at night and remain vigilant when out in Torbay following three recent attacks.
LAL language school in Paignton has called for the night curfew after pupils have been beaten up, had stones and drink cans thrown at them and been subjected to verbal abuse during their stay in the Bay.
The school has warned its 400 foreign students not to go out in big groups and to stay at home with their host families and not go out at night in Torquay or Paignton.
The warning comes a week after a French LAL student was allegedly punched and kicked and had a can of drink poured over her at Paignton Bus Station by local youths.
Police arrested a sixth suspect on Thursday in connection with the frenzied murders of two French students, which caused shock on both sides of the Channel.
London's Metropolitan Police said they had arrested a 28-year-old man for attempting to pervert the course of justice after he presented himself at a south London police station. He has been bailed to return on August 25.
Last week, police charged Nigel Farmer, 33, and Daniel Sonnex, 23, with the murders of 23-year-old students Laurent Bonomo and Gabriel Ferez.
Farmer was additionally charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice and arson while Sonnex was also charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice.
Another man and a woman have also been arrested and freed on bail but were not charged.
The original police inquiry into the death of Rachel Whitear, 21, from a heroin overdose was seriously flawed, the Independent Police Complaints Commission said.
After the student was found dead in her bedsit, her parents allowed photographs of her body to be used in an antidrugs film. But they became convinced that her ex-boyfriend, Luke Fitzgerald, who was an addict, had administered the fix. They claimed that her body had been posed to seem as if no one else was involved.
The commission, saying it had been impossible to establish if the death was suspicious, criticised Devon and Cornwall police and the decision of a coroner not to order a postmortem examination.
The present system of classifying degrees is not fit for purpose and should be scrapped, the head of the universities watchdog has told MPs.
Peter Williams, the chief executive of the Quality Assurance Agency, told the Commons universities select committee that the smaller, research-led universities of the 1994 Group were mostly responsible for the huge increase in firsts and 2:1s in the past five years that has provoked talk of degree inflation.
"The degree classification system is not fit for purpose ... It was designed for a smaller higher education world. It has passed its usefulness," Williams said.
He said 118 individual institutions had the power to award degrees, and they set their own standards based on a threshold set by the QAA. There was no national curriculum or examination to regulate standards.
Universities are introducing their own admissions tests because they believe A-levels are not reliable indicators of a student's ability, a report has revealed.
Around 14 per cent of higher education institutions, one in seven, use one or more entrance exams, a study of admissions procedures by the vice-chancellors' group Universities UK, found.
The findings will add to fears that the existing curriculum is seen as no longer fit for purpose.
Critics say A-levels are no longer rigorous enough to pick out the best students, because the pressure of targets and league tables forces schools to "teach to the test" - meaning pupils miss out on key subject knowledge.
An ex-soldier of 91 has become the oldest person to be awarded a PhD by Cambridge University.
Michael Cobb began The Railways of Great Britain: A Historical Atlas in 1978.
He spent 18 years writing his thesis after travelling every train line in the UK.
It took another seven years to get it into print.
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Michael, who fought in World War II, said: "I was 62 when I started and never thought of a PhD."
Examiner Dr Richard Smith said: "The atlas is a remarkable piece of scholarship.
It charts the dates of every line and station."
Michael, from Plymtree, Devon, will get his PhD on Saturday at a ceremony attended by his family.
A British student has described how staying silent saved her life after she was attacked by a lion in New Zealand.
The 19-year-old was bitten on the hand but resisted the urge to scream as the slightest sound could have woken the rest of the pack.
Instead, she gently tapped the lion's nose to release herself from its' grip as five other lions slept in the safari park enclosure.
THE GOVERNMENT'S higher education grant scheme does not pay attention to the real costs incurred by those in third-level education, the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) has said.
USI president Shane Kelly estimates the college year costs students, on average, about €7,000 when essentials such as rent, food costs, transport and college supplies are accounted for.
This meant that for some 57,000 students who qualified for and depended on grant aid to assist their further education, Mr Kelly added, the maximum they could receive fell well short of the actual cost of living away from home.
He said the standard full rate of €3,420 was received by only about 10 per cent of students and that the majority received the 50 per cent assistance of €1,710 or less, which covered less than a quarter of the estimated cost of the college year.
A sixth person has been arrested over the murder of two French students in south-east London.
The bodies of Gabriel Ferez and Laurent Bonomo, both 23, were found stabbed and burnt in a New Cross bedsit on 29 June.
The 28-year-old man, who was arrested on suspicion of attempting to pervert the course of justice, has now been released on bail until 25 August.
Daniel Sonnex, 23, of Peckham and Nigel Farmer, 33, of no fixed abode, have been charged with the murders.
One in seven universities now use their own exams to decide which students to admit, according to a new report.
Imperial College London recently announced it would introduce an entrance exam, and the outgoing vice-chancellor, Sir Richard Sykes, said more universities would follow.
A study of admissions systems by the vice-chancellors' group, Universities UK, says that 14% of UK universities and colleges use one or more admissions tests for oversubscribed subjects.
The report calls for increased use of "entry profiles" to give prospective applicants the information they need before applying, and to make entry processes clearer.
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