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University of Wolverhampton omitted from league tables after refusing to release performance data

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The University of Wolverhampton was the only university in the UK which refused to release data on its performance, meaning that they could not be included in the league tables.

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The data, which relates to entry standards, student satisfaction, research quality and graduate prospects, is combined to deliver an overall score for 2017.

The university of Cambridge currently tops the table, narrowly beating Oxford with a total score of 1000 to Oxford's 998.

The top university in the West Midlands continued to be the University of Warwick which moved up a place to number seven from its previous place at number eight in the tables for 2016. The University of Wolverhampton instead released 'Student Mix' data, which showed information relating to the 19,065 students enrolled in the academic year 2014/15.

The data showed how 85 per cent of those studying at the university are undergraduates, 74 per cent of students are full time, 91 per cent live in the UK and 65 per cent are female.

The data does not reveal anything about what graduates have to obtain in order to enter the university, how satisfied they are with the experience of the teaching and support, the quality of work done there or their prospects when they graduate.

A statement released by the University of Wolverhampton said: "From January 2010 onwards, the university has not appeared in any league tables produced by newspapers.

"We appeared in the Times league tables published in June 2009, in which our overall position improved, but this was the last time.

"We believe that these tables disadvantage universities such as Wolverhampton as they are constructed using a methodology that does not accurately reflect the positive impact we make upon the communities we serve or represent a fair picture of our strengths.

"There are many published assessments of our performance."

The news follows the recent league tables released for secondary schools which revealed that 51.6 per cent per cent of Wolverhampton pupils managed the Government's benchmark of five or more GCSEs at A* to C, including English and maths, in 2015.

The results put the city 127th out of 152 local authorities – an improvement of 18 places on the previous year.