Today's news

Universities praised for spin-out success
There are now more staff working in technology transfer than before and more patents filed, benefiting universities by £22.4 million, according to the second Annual Survey on University Technology Transfer Activities. However, the number of new spin-out companies from university departments dropped for the first time last year. 125 institutions were polled for the survey, which was conducted by Nottingham University Business School, The University Companies Association and the Association for University Research and Industry Links. The report's publication coincides with a conference today on the future of university business links.
( Guardian, Financial Times )

Universities biased against college pupils
Leading universities are discriminating against students from sixth-form and further education colleges, according to a report published yesterday by the Department for Education. The authors of the paper, titled  Post-Qualification Applications , said one advantage of students applying to university after receiving their A-level results was that admissions tutors would be inclined "to focus more clearly on the actual achievement of individual applicants".
( Daily Telegraph, Guardian, Financial Times )

Most students regret their A-level choices
More than half of teenagers believe they have made the wrong choice of GCSEs and A levels, according to a survey published yesterday by ExamAid and the Association of Colleges. Nine per cent of students questioned said they would like to change all or most of their subjects. Another 46 per cent said they wanted to abandon some of their chosen courses. A third of teenagers believed that their courses would definitely help them to achieve their career ambitions, while 57 per cent expressed doubts.
( Times )

Fears grow for student who vanished 6 days ago
Police were last night "extremely worried" over an 18-year-old girl who vanished six days ago while walking along a country lane. Alicia Eborne was last seen on Friday when she left her family's home on the edge of Dartmoor to walk half a mile to a bus stop in the nearest village. The student was reported missing after she failed to arrive at Plymouth College of Further Education, and for her part time job at a restaurant.
( Daily Telegraph )

Storm clouds brew in Oxford's no man's land
Students at Oxford University's only all-female college have passed a vote of no confidence in the principal amid fears that governors plan a vote to admit men. Undergraduates at St Hilda's College voted unanimously to condemn principal Judith English as unprofessional.
( Times )

York student journalists repeat their scoop
Aspiring journalists at York University have once again come out top in the Guardian 's student media awards. The university's student publication, York Vision , took the newspaper of the year award for the second year running, and two of its journalists won top gongs.
( Guardian )

National pay scales don't make any sense
Warwick University economics professor Andrew Oswald says "the idea of a common wage scale that runs from Sussex to Salford is no longer swallowable."
( Independent )

Tory education man admits student love child
Tim Yeo, the new shadow health and education secretary, has disclosed that he would like to meet a long-lost daughter he gave up for adoption when he was a student at Cambridge University in 1967.
( Independent )

Lack of crater ice dashes hopes of Moon base
A team from the Smithsonian Institute in Washington reports in the journal Nature that radar surveys of lunar craters that never see sunlight reveal that there is little ice on the Moon. Ian Crawford, a lecturer in planetary geology at Birkbeck College in London, says that water from lunar ice is a prerequisite for a Moon base. It is needed to drink, get oxygen, and create rocket fuel.
( Independent )