24,000 students on campus at University of Huddersfield

Nov 3 2009 Huddersfield Daily Examiner

THE ‘House Full’ signs have gone up at the University of Huddersfield.

More students than ever are studying at the town’s university.

The number of students has topped 24,000 for the first time and the Queensgate campus is full, with no spare capacity as it stands.

And the good news for the town is that the estimated spends by the university and its students in Huddersfield is a staggering £400m.

This year the Government – in order to keep a lid on funding costs – imposed a cap on the number of new, full-time undergraduates who could be recruited.

That limit for Huddersfield was about 5,000 and was quickly reached.

The Queensgate campus is home to about 18,000 students, the satellite centres of Oldham and Barnsley have a little over 1,000 students each. The remainder are on teacher training placements across the north of England.

Deputy vice-chancellor Prof Mike Page said: “The limitation to growth is controlled by space and Government policy.

“Currently there is a Government cap on expansion. If that restriction was lifted then our ability to expand would be controlled by land and space available.

“Our current site is at full capacity and we could not build more on this site.

“We are not the largest former polytechnic – Leeds Met and Manchester Met are bigger – but we are in the top dozen in the country.