Arden Secures 80% Student Satisfaction in 2020 National Student Survey

Arden University has secured an impressive 80% overall student satisfaction rating in the latest National Student Survey 2020 (NSS).

The University has seen a significant increase in the number of its final-year students satisfied with their degree course in the important UK-wide survey.

A record 80.6% of Arden’s students reported they were satisfied with the overall quality of their course- a rise of more than 2% on last year’s results and shows Arden’s dedication to quality and significant investment in its academic staff.

The NSS is a high-profile, independent annual survey, commissioned by the Office for Students, of almost half a million final-year students across the UK. It asks 27 questions, across eight areas, to gather opinions from students about their overall time at university, asking for honest feedback on what it has been like to study at the university.

Importantly an impressive 86.6% of Arden students were satisfied with the learning opportunities on their course – which compares brilliantly with a sector average of 82.8%.

Arden's Vice-Chancellor and CEO Carl Lygo said: ”We’re delighted with this year’s NSS survey results which show that we’re doing really well in the areas that matter most to our students. That they can take what they learn and apply it and then use that crucial skill again in their workplace or in their own businesses.

“We see offering incredible learning opportunities as the key to embedding students’ knowledge and delivering work-ready graduates that are fit for the modern workplace,” 

“This has been recognised with improvements on last year’s results and in our exceeding the sector benchmark. These results show that we’re doing what we set out to do and I couldn’t be prouder.”

Professsor Lygo also paid tribute to Arden’s dedicated team of academic teaching staff.

“We’ve done really well on teaching but we expected that after putting so much investment in recruiting even more lecturers that are not only knowledgeable but really passionate too.”

Additionally 86.4% of Arden students agreed that their course had provided them with opportunities to explore ideas or concepts in depth. 

Professor Lygo added: “What I’m most delighted to see is students recording that Arden challenges them to achieve their best work and that our staff are making their course content interesting, relevant and engaging.

“We also continue to exceed the sector average in Assessment and Feedback, in particular the lengths our lecturers go to provide helpful feedback on students' work.”

Professor Lygo confirmed that as in previous years Arden will use results from all areas of the survey for further improvement across the university.

You can see the survey results on the Office for Students website.

This article was published on July 16, 2020.