Student satisfaction within UK universities has reached a whopping 85%, an increase of 2% from last year, making this the highest result recorded by the National Student Survey since 2005.

Only 8% of those students surveyed said that they were dissatisfied with the education on offer from UK higher education, while nearly 90% said that they were either “definitely” or “mostly” satisfied with the quality of their course.

In total, 287,000 final-year students responded to the annual National Student Survey this year, which was published yesterday by the Higher Education Funding Council. For the first time, these results will be posted on the Government’s Unistats website, which has been relaunched by Business Secretary, Vince Cable.

Boasting the nation’s happiest students is St Mary’s University College Belfast, an institution specialising in the education of teachers, which has a near-perfect satisfaction rating of 98%. At the other end of the table was Ravensbourne, where only 61% declaring themselves content.

Locally, Brighton and Sussex Medical School can lay claim to an impressive 91%, with the University of Sussex following not too far behind with 88%. The University of Brighton had a respectable score, falling just below the national average at 82%.

Liam Burns, NUS President said: “We have supported and worked with the NSS since it began in 2005 as a tool for securing improvement to student experience. Although in that time progress has not been as rapid as we would have liked, particularly in areas such as assessment and feedback, results have continued to improve year on year and they must continue to do so.”