Education

North East England is one of the most popular student destinations in the UK.

Within a radius of only 45 miles there are five universities – Durham, Newcastle, Northumbria, Sunderland and Teesside. There is also a large network of further education colleges, with 18 of these offering higher education courses.

Between them these institutions attract around 96,000 full and part-time students. The retention rate of graduates in the region is the highest outside London.

Around 10 per cent of the students in the region are from overseas, adding to the cultural diversity and increasingly outward looking perspectives of North East England. This gives an extra dimension to the unique Regional Language Network, set up to substantially increase the language skills of the region.