Newcastle is the latest university to set up a campus in London’s East End running cheek-by-jowl with the City’s financial district and aimed at business and foreign students—in the wake of last year’s government concerns about visa abuse.
It is opening in Spitalfields next month at Middlesex Street, on the University of East Anglia’s former London base and not too far from Glasgow Uni’s ‘south of the Border’ branch off Brick Lane.
The provincial universities’ London campuses were the subject of an investigation in 2014 into allegations of visa abuse by applicants from abroad.
But the Quality Assurance Agency, which was asked to carry out the inquiry by the government, found the centres were “well founded and effectively managed”.
The new campus is to offer “specific programmes aimed at international students”, the university said, including the EU, and also giving Newcastle-based undergraduates and post-graduates a chance to do projects in London.
Vice-chancellor Chris Brink said: “Having a base in one of the most-influential cities in the world will help reinforce our reputation for innovation.”
The campus is offering full-time and part-time courses at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, with an initial focus on business programmes.
The Middlesex Street centre operating from Into UK’s commercial premises is two minutes from Liverpool Street station, offering business course students close proximity to the financial quarter of the Square Mile.
The space had previously been occupied by the University of East Anglia, but was closed last September as part of what the institution described as a “streamline” of its course offering.
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