Leeds Uni offering students £10,000 NOT to attend university

University can be ridiculously spenny at the best of times so imagine the luck of those would-be students who are being asked to NOT go for the sum of £10,000.

This is not BS. The University of Leeds is really offering students a five-figure sum and free accommodation to defer their courses…

… that is, if you’re wanting to study law or business. So bad luck if you’re academic interests don’t fit the criteria.

Still, what an offer. But why? Have they gone mad? No. The reasoning is fairly sound, not that it matters. You’re already applying to uni as law and business students.

But for those of you still reading: Deputy Vice Chancellor Peter Jimack explained how the university is making the offer as some courses are full.

The proffessor said the nature of teacher-assessed grades as opposed to exam-based grades had made it “harder to predict” the number of successful applicants.

He told the BBC: “We’ve contacted students on a small number of programmes in two schools to let them know that we are going to make them an offer to defer to next year with an incentive of a cash payment of about £10,000 and our fee for their halls of residence in their first year being paid by the university.

“We are not putting pressure on anybody to make that choice, it’s an entirely free choice.”

He said any students who chose to defer until 2022 would be provided with online materials to help them prepare for their actual start-date next year.

Jimack said the university was also creating an extra 30 places to study medicine for students who were unable to get a place at universities which were chocka block.

A record number of students have applied to study medicine this autumn. Thats more than a 20% rise on last year.

Whew. 

Jimack added: “We recognise that there is a national need and we know from the last 18 months how important our doctors and nurses are.

“So we’re stepping-up and making available some additional places that we will make available to students from oversubscribed universities to come and study with us at Leeds.”

Happy days for lawyers and business types.