A prestigious Scottish university is offering free accommodation to students undertaking new “partnership” degrees.
The University of Aberdeen will offer free accommodation to students in their third and fourth years of the new degrees being launched in partnership with Forth Valley College.
Forth Valley College, noting applications are now open for August 2024 entry, said: “The courses are the first partnership degrees that the University of Aberdeen has offered in conjunction with a Scottish college.”
It added that 35 places will be available in total, “in areas linked with key government priorities such as sustainability, green energy, technology, health and science”.
READ MORE: Ferguson Marine news from Kate Forbes divides opinion
Successful applicants will start their degree studies at Forth Valley College, before benefiting from free accommodation in their third and fourth years at the University of Aberdeen while completing their degree.
Forth Valley College said: “The free accommodation offer aims to address barriers to higher education such as financial constraints and the cost of living crisis.”
It noted that courses are available in a range of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) disciplines.
The college said: “The partnership degree incorporating the HND applied biological sciences can lead to a BSc in a range of disciplines including animal behaviour and welfare; biochemistry; biology; biological sciences; ecology; molecular and cellular biology; pharmacology; physiology; and zoology.
“In the engineering field, partnership degrees leading to BEng qualifications in variants of chemical, civil, electrical and mechanical engineering are all being offered.”
READ MORE: Revealed: Scotland bucks trend of decline in UK
The qualifications also “receive input from employers across industry and the result is programmes which deliver highly skilled and work-ready graduates”, Forth Valley College noted.
Kenny MacInnes, principal of Forth Valley College, said: “We’re delighted to be working in partnership with the University of Aberdeen to bring these exciting opportunities to aspiring scientists and engineers across Forth Valley. These are excellent programmes which will help students develop the skills to become industry ready and have excellent prospects for a career in STEM upon completing their degree.”
He added: “Both organisations have an excellent reputation for their STEM provision and students will benefit from state-of-the-art learning environments, labs and workshops and highly experienced teaching staff.
“We also expect the offer of free accommodation in the third and fourth years to be really popular with students and it will widen access to higher education for many prospective students who may not have been able to consider it previously.”
Forth Valley College said: “Students will have university status from their first year. However, the partnership degree pathway offers them the opportunity to study locally for the first two years, benefit from smaller class sizes and more one to one time with lecturers whilst at college, and build their confidence before progressing to university to complete their qualification.”
READ MORE: Ian McConnell: Good for Scotland but Labour favours Tory millstones
Jo-Anne Murray, vice-principal (education) at the University of Aberdeen, said: “Our founding purpose is to be open to all and we are focused on providing an outstanding and inclusive educational environment which gives every student the opportunity to reach their own potential.
“Forth Valley College is a valued partner and we are pleased to be able to open up these new partnership degree programmes. We are delighted to be able to support the students with our free accommodation offer when they move to Aberdeen in their third year.
“We hope this makes the degrees a viable option for more students and allows them to experience all Aberdeen has to offer. We look forward to welcoming the first cohort of new partnership students later in the summer.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel