Canterbury Christ Church University

By ALASTAIR MCCALL, DAILY MAIL UNIVERSITY GUIDE EDITOR Published: 13:07, 12 August 2026 | Updated: 13:07, 12 August 2026 Your browser does not support iframes. Your browser does not support iframes. Heavy investment in improving the student experience is bearing fruit across Canterbury Christ Church University's (CCCU's) courses and campuses. New Student Zones have opened in Canterbury, Medway and Tunbridge Wells, uniting facilities and resources to help students succeed. This encompasses course and study skills information, wellbeing support, budgeting advice and IT support. Placement teams are also located in the new zones to help students with paperwork and requirements to do with placements, as well as advice on health and safety, insurance and risk assessments for those about to go on placement and a contact point for those already on them. Placements are an important component of many CCCU degrees - particularly popular/required on business, computing and healthcare courses - all of which now have new Your Journey to Success modules (see Student support and campus culture, below). Extra help with maths and statistics is now available for all students through the learning skills team. It is one of a small number of modern universities with its own medical school, run with the University of Kent, and has come a long way from its foundation as a teacher training college in 1962. Today, CCCU offers a diverse portfolio of courses including business and management, nursing and healthcare, law, media, sport science and music and performing arts. It does notably well in our graduate employment measures - a reflection of the vocational nature of many courses, which feed large numbers of graduates into the public and private sector. There are also more than 500 degree apprentices on campus, mainly on healthcare programmes, with new options in midwifery, primary school teaching and possibly engineering to come. Your browser does not support iframes. All students from homes with annual income of £25,000 or less receive a university grant worth £600 per academic year. This is the mainstay of the financial support offered, which sees the university distribute just under £4.5m a year to students. Care leavers' bursaries pay £1,200 a year, totalling a maximum of £4,800. Students who enrol having attended any of the university's 50-plus partner schools and colleges in Kent and Medway qualify for £500 of support each year. The brightest recruits get a £2,000 academic excellence scholarship in return for achieving AAA at A-level or equivalent. There are other awards for music and sport, and a University Advantage package for health students, which includes uniforms, a free DBS check and occupational health costs, such as immunisations. More than £840,000 of hardship support was given to students facing severe financial hardship in 2024-25, and several on-campus initiatives - including a breakfast club and campus pantry - help students cope with cost of living issues. Student accommodation prices have been frozen for 2026-27. The cheapest rooms in Canterbury are priced from £4,835 for a 39-week contract on a standard room in Vernon Place or university houses, rising to a maximum of £10,199 for a 51-week let on a large studio in Lanfranc House. Accommodation on the Medway campus comes from private provider, Unite Students, and is priced at £158 per week, or £8,058 for a 51-week contract. Your browser does not support iframes. Your browser does not support iframes. Admissions, teaching and student support Canterbury Christ Church achieves considerable diversity in its student population through 'a holistic approach to admissions' and without having a contextual admissions policy that offers lower offers to applicants who have experienced disadvantage in life or education. More than 95% of all applications result in an offer, with the university using its wide range of foundation years to admit students without the qualifications needed to move straight on to a degree. It is among the 20 universities with the highest proportion of students from homes where parents did not go to university and it has an above average proportion of mature returners to education. Many students travel to the campus from deprived parts of inner London and from Kent and Medway coastal towns where deprivation is also high. A new module (Your Journey to Success) has been introduced to all degrees in the past year to boost student wellbeing and in acknowledgement of the diversity of the university's intake. The module offers wellbeing tools and support for first-year students, setting targets and offering strategies for navigating university life. Students have personal academic tutors and the student wellbeing team provides specialist advice, one-to-one support, drop-ins, workshops and counselling. Round the clock support is also available through the Spectrum.Life app and website. CCCU's free SafeZone app helps keep students safe, allowing them to alert security if they need urgent help or first aid.