Mental health support a huge consideration for University students
The University of Northampton say it's a huge consideration for students, as they host their open day today.
Northampton University say mental health support is a huge part of why students decide on where to go for further education.
New research commissioned by De Montfort University Leicester (DMU) reveals that mental health support is now one of the most important factors students and parents consider when choosing a university.
Across the UK, nearly 300,000 students report experiencing mental health challenges – a figure that has risen dramatically over recent years.
After this weeks A Level results Northampton University took over 1000 calls this week, with an open day being held on the campus today.
Even more students in the East Midlands have received top grades at A-Level this year, with 7.4% getting A* compared to 5.8% in 2019.
Laura Fremantle is a Senior Marketing Officer for UK recruitment at the University of Northampton.
She says mental health is a big consideration for students choosing their higher education options:
"We always want to make sure that any student that is coming to the University of Northampton feels safe and supported whilst they're studying with us.
"So we have our Assist team at the university who can support students with any kinds of mental health issues or conditions that they may be working through, and they will always be on hand throughout the entire time that a student is studying with us."
Laura also says that students who face difficulty feeling overwhelmed or anxious in large crowds may benefit from studying at Northampton University:
"One of the benefits of studying at the University of Northampton actually, is that we have much smaller lecture sizes.
"So rather than having hundreds of students in a lecture theatre altogether, we'll reduce that to sort of around 30 or so.
"So this the overwhelming sort of capacity of things that you can get at university is not necessarily something that you would see at Northampton. So that's something that we took into consideration when we rebuilt our campus."
The campus is right next to the town centre in Northampton, and was reopened in 2018.
Laura also says they expect over a thousand calls this week, as students go through Clearing, a process to decide on further education based on their grades.
This is actually a process which actually last until October according to Laura.
Though she does warn that the later students leave it the less options they may have as courses fill up.
You can find out more on the Open Day on the University's website.