The articles are going to be given tougher guidance on their advertising claims
Universities are going to face a crackdown on how they advertise and market courses to attract students.
With hundreds of thousands of formulas in the process of applying, universities are going to be warned by the advertising watchdog that they need to prove the accuracy of their claims.
Earlier in 2017, the University of Reading has it that it is in the top 1% of the world's universities.
This has been challenged as something that could not be objectively proved.
The Advertising Standards Authority is expected next week to identify more universities which have breached the advertising code.
It is expected that up to six universities will be challenged over their advertising.
The watchdog says the University of Bedfordshire faced a complaint about claiming to have "gold standard"
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Liverpool John Moores University was challenged over being more specific about its claim to be (19459011)
'Competing for students'
Universities are competing for students and their (19459011)
There has been a proliferation of league tables and rankings which are used to base claims about " world class "status for universities or individual degree courses.
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University of Reading
The University of Reading is the top 1% in the world
The advertising watchdog has justified by any "objective substantiation" - and without "adequate substantiation", can rule them to be "misleading".
If advertisers persistently refuse to accept the rulings from the watchdog, they can be considered to trade standards officers, who could impose fines.
But the advertising watchdog says advertisers are more likely to comply rather than face "bad publicity."
The University of Reading was told in the summer that it could be "materially misleading" to market itself as being in the top 1 of the UK universities.
The univ. (19459012) The univ ersity agreed to remove the claim and the complaint was "informally resolved" without a formal investigation or ruling
But it is understood that the issue was then raised with wider university representative groups - because many universities make such specific claims about their international reputation.
