Good universities for Economics?

Hi !

Looking for advice on non-Oxbridge or London unis that are still really good for economics and/or PPE ?

Preferably Russel Group Unis

Thanks

For economics specifically, in my experience there's the top tier (Oxbridge, LSE, UCL and Warwick), then the second tier (Bristol, Durham, Edinburgh, St Andrews, Nottingham and Bath). Then you've got a third tier which is broader and more uncertain (king's, Exeter, Glasgow, Southampton, York, Sheffield, Leeds, Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle, QMUL, etc). Definitely avoid most unis outside of these for economics. This is very general, just my opinion and is based on rigor of economics course and Econ department rep, it's not an indicator of employability (otherwise some unis would change around e.g. king's higher for example).

I'm afraid I have little insight into politics and philosophy departments, or PPE generally.

For economics specifically, in my experience there's the top tier (Oxbridge, LSE, UCL and Warwick), then the second tier (Bristol, Durham, Edinburgh, St Andrews, Nottingham and Bath). Then you've got a third tier which is broader and more uncertain (king's, Exeter, Glasgow, Southampton, York, Sheffield, Leeds, Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle, QMUL, etc). Definitely avoid most unis outside of these for economics. This is very general, just my opinion and is based on rigor of economics course and Econ department rep, it's not an indicator of employability (otherwise some unis would change around e.g. king's higher for example).

I'm afraid I have little insight into politics and philosophy departments, or PPE generally.

i woudnt call Kings,Exeter,Leeds or Glasgow uncertain. All are still great and reputable universities and you still need A*AA to get into them. Especially Kings which has a massive business society and a lot of opportunities in London would say its much better for econ than Nottingham. Leeds business school also offers a year in industry for any business courses which employers like. Spoken to a lot of successful people from those unis. While its true the second tier has some recruitment and is kind of targeted by employers your third tier has a crazy mix of some great unis for econ and some average. Cant put Kings/Exeter in the same category as Newcastle.

You've completely misunderstood. I said I was basing it on rigor of economics course and the reputation of the economics department. You disagreed because of entry requirements, the business schools and location. Can you see your error? Ultimately if you're judging on a completely different set of criteria, odds are that you'll come to a different conclusion.

I based it on economics course rigor and rep of Econ department as the OP was asking about which are good for economics and/or PPE. The OP didn't ask which had the best location, societies, or employer connections. If the OP asked which unis I'd recommend overall to do a degree at then I would factor these things in, but they asked which are good for Econ and Kings is pretty trash for Econ for example, but it's a great overall uni so will still have decent career prospects.

Nope i didn't. He/she asked for 'non-Oxbridge or London unis that are still really good for economics' i get that you based it on rigor of course but you need to give the whole picture which you didn't do. You cant recommend econ unis and not discuss career prospects that's literally the point of uni. And Kings is an example of a uni that provides that ample opportunity and is really good for econ not 'trash'. I based my argument on that fact not predicted grades.

You cannot tier universities and not factor in employability. Reputation is a great point however calling a uni 'uncertain' just based off of that is silly since universities like Leeds Kings Exeter QMUL are till v reputable and provide ample opportunity to be successful. nothing uncertain about that. You can argue that a 1st from a uni like Leeds and a year in industry which they provide to all business courses will set you up much better than a 2:1 at Durham.
Its all about what you want to do.
Better unis giving better opportunities is very true I just didn't like how mixed your last tier was, Ive got an offer from Bristol for econ but would much rather go Kings if i got an offer.

I fundamentally disagree.

Career prospects are certainly not the whole point of university. This is a ridiculous statement. If this was true then everyone would do medicine, law, business subjects and STEM. But they clearly don't. If career prospects are the whole point of university then why is basically everything you learn at uni not applicable to basically every job situation? University is about far more than career prospects, career prospects is simply one aspect. University is about growing up, independence, socialising, learning to think and write clearly, about studying something you're interested in. If "career prospects are literally the point of university" then why do people study subjects with a negative salary premium like English, you're statistically more likely to earn a higher salary with no degree than an English degree?

You said that King's is really good for economics, can you explain why? I've worked for over a year as an economist and you very very rarely come across king's economics graduates because they only started teaching straight economics a couple of years ago. The reason why they've only just started teaching it is that Kings' economics department is weak, they don't even have a proper economics department, it's split between the department of political economy, the business school and the department for international development. This is the case because they're not strong enough to pull in enough funding to have their own department. This is why when you look at stronger unis for economics (e.g. Nottingham, Warwick, UCL, Bath, etc), they have their own separate economics departments. I have a colleague who's a part-time visiting lecturer at king's for Econ and even he says the quality of course isn't on par with King's typical competitors, partly because the economics faculties are a mish-mash of different departments, partly because new courses have teething problems, partly because people don't know king's for economics and partly because it has a far high international student intake so has to deal with a greater variance in prerequisite knowledge coming into the course.

You're still missing the point that you're considering how reputable the whole uni is, whereas I'm talking about how reputable the course and department teaching it are. For example, king's is a very reputable uni and on par with most the semi-targets, even above some. But for economics it's really not very strong, its course isn't as rigorous as other semi-targets who's courses are far more advanced.

I labelled them as uncertain because I've found the degree of cohort heterogeneity much higher in those unis than the unis I placed in the tiers above. You can obviously be an excellent candidate from those unis, I've just felt like the median candidate isn't as strong as the unis I placed above them.


The original question stated unis that are good for economics, king's is not as strong for economics, hence why I put it in the 3rd tier. King's economics graduates can still do well I'm sure but it's difficult to decompose how much of this is simply going to an overall well repped uni and location factors compared to actually how good it is for economics.

I don't really get your point about a 1st with placement from Leeds will set you up much better than a 2.1 from Durham. Surely this just all depends on the individual and their skills during recruitment processes, plus their degree of motivation? I'm not sure what you're getting at, especially because you can still take a year out to do a placement at Durham if you want and if you don't you can still do summer internships? The point is to compare the median students, not whether it's possible for one to produce a better candidate than another.

If university is just about career prospects then I hope you enjoy the next three years of your degree just to get a job at the end of it.

You need to take into account career prospects since over 50% of UK graduates get a job after graduating. There's nothing wrong or sad about getting a job after a 3 year degree, student debt exists and people may want to start a career. Its true that many people don't care as much about career prospects such as English students but that doesn't mean you shouldn't take them into account. Your third tier is too broad and makes it seem that those unis aren't good or reputable which is very misleading, that's my only issue with your statement. All points made were to emphasise that point. If you don't agree that's fair enough but you made those universities seem dodgy or not desirable which isn't really true. Career prospects aren't the whole point of uni but they are a massive one that you overlooked.

Again I feel like you're just misinterpreting what I wrote and then arguing against that rather than what I actually wrote.

I never said the unis in the third tier weren't reputable, in fact surely I demonstrated that that they are reputable as they're in the top20 courses in the country, how is this me saying they're not good. I was simply saying that in my opinion they're less good for economics than unis like Oxbridge, LSE, UCL, Durham, Bath, etc. If you misinterpreted that as me saying they're bad overall then I feel like that's on you rather than me.

I also never said that careers aren't important, I never said that people shouldn't want graduate jobs and I never said that people shouldn't take student loans into account. I simply explained my disagreement to your comment that career prospects are literally the whole point of university, I'm pretty sure most would agree with me on that.

Obviously careers are important and I even stated in my original comment that if you're going to take career prospects into account then king's would be higher so I still don't get what you're arguing about, I didn't overlook it. I never indicated unis in the tier 3 were dodgy, I said I'd probably avoid the courses outside of the three tiers so once again you're arguing against a point I never made.

My tiers for economics careers also hold pretty true in my opinion. If you're considering finance careers then things might change a little but the thread is about economics after all. I think it's fairly clear that the tiers hold pretty well career prospects wise anyway other than king's which I'd bump up to tier two if the person was looking for non-economist graduate schemes. I'd say most would agree that the unis in tier 1 offer better career prospects than the tier 2 unis and the tier 2 ones offer better career prospects than the tier 3 ones and that the tier 3 ones probably offer better opportunities than the ones outside the three tiers, once you've controlled for factors like parental income, motivation, etc. Do you actually disagree?

For economics specifically, in my experience there's the top tier (Oxbridge, LSE, UCL and Warwick), then the second tier (Bristol, Durham, Edinburgh, St Andrews, Nottingham and Bath). Then you've got a third tier which is broader and more uncertain (king's, Exeter, Glasgow, Southampton, York, Sheffield, Leeds, Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle, QMUL, etc). Definitely avoid most unis outside of these for economics. This is very general, just my opinion and is based on rigor of economics course and Econ department rep, it's not an indicator of employability (otherwise some unis would change around e.g. king's higher for example).

I'm afraid I have little insight into politics and philosophy departments, or PPE generally.

Whilst a good list for Economics courses, I feel that the third tier has high levels of variety and many universities there don't deserve to be there. QMUL and Newcastle are fair, because I've found that their courses are like a "textbook course", something you'd find at pretty much any other university. I disagree placing York, Manchester, and Southampton there. They're all great Economics schools (they all also have their own department, unlike Exeter), and have strong research in specialist areas. I do not think that they're uncertain at all. In terms of the candidate and Economics-related recruitment, York is being targeted by the Civil Service for the Economics Campus in Darlington. I think that's pretty telling of the level of rigor and teaching at the institution.

In terms of PPE, York was the first university to offer it outside of Oxford, and the course closely follows Oxford's model, and has its own Department. Most other institutions simply teach PPE as a triple honors with all subject areas separate, without the link, which is not true at York. As far as I know, Warwick also takes this approach to teaching PPE.

Yes the third tier is indeed more variable, I think I've mentioned it when giving tiers in other posts but I should've put that here. Personally I actually think QMUL is pretty good, even more so at postgrad level, good for macro and finance plus a good location, wouldn't recommend it so much for other areas tho. Newcastle is fairly average tho.

Like I said, these are my opinion, but I can give you my rough reasoning if it's helpful in any way. Southampton is good for econometrics but beyond that it seems decent but not really good, at least not as strong as those I put in tier 2. Manchester I put in tier 2 simply because I think the BSc is plenty rigorous but the BA less, so as an average I put it in tier 3 but if you were to separate them then I'd put the BSc in tier 2. York is good for health economics and econometrics, personally the people I know who've come from York didn't seem quite as strong as those from some of the tier 2 ones, but I would personally put York at the top of the tier 3 ones with QMUL. You've also got to remember that the less good tier 2 ones will be close to the better tier 3 ones for example, I'm not saying all in the same tier are of equal quality.

I'm not sure what point you're making about York being targeted by the CS new Northern campus. As in, is this meant to be a selling point? I don't mean that in a rude way at all, just that the Northern campus has really struggled to fill roles. They thought more would relocate from Whitehall to Darlington but over 80% of the roles have been filled by locals so I'm not surprised to hear you say they're targeting York, they're probably targeting Newcastle, Leeds and Durham too (I would be if I were them at least). I just mean that targeting from a civil service offshoot campus isn't evidence of it being as good as those I put in tier 2 in my opinion. Naturally, you're well within your rights to disagree with me and that's fine

Obviously I can only speak in depth about York, because I haven't attended the other institutions, but whilst broadly I would agree, I do think that putting York in the third tier is unfair.

I do think the CS new Northern campus is a selling point. Really revitalizes that local economy. It's not necessarily something I am super interested in pursuing, but nice to know that it's there. And in comparison to other similar universities in the area, I would still say that York is one of the strongest. Personally, I think Durham is very much overhyped for Economics. They don't even have their own Economics department, and from when I visited, it seemed as if though they used the Blanchard book (which is quite elementary) throughout their Macroeconomics course of study. As far as I know, econometrics isn't a mandatory module either. In terms of rankings, Durham is some 200-301 in the world for Economics (ARWU), York's 51-75. The department is very strong, and I think it's been given the short end of a stick treatment, be it from assumptions made on current domestic rankings, or its (now) AAB entry requirement.

I'm not too sure of the claim that York students are less strong than at certain other universities is that true either. I'm sure there are a variable type of student at every university. But I'll agree that at certain institutions (LSE in particular) there will be a much stronger concentration of people who have a genuine interest in Economics, and not just people who will be using it as a means of which to enter Investment Banking.

Obviously, I am biased. My degree concentration is within econometrics, which is what York does best, so I've pretty much only experiences a grade-A education. But I think the level of research and teaching as a whole in the department is great. And, as far as I know, several other universities (perhaps even Durham, I don't remember) uses textbooks published from York in their teaching.

Is the Finance degree at Durham worse than the Economics at Durham. I mean is it taught taught with less rigour and has worse job prospective?