"Recruiting students without the academic ability to complete the course is not in universities' interests as it risks compromising their reputation, causes significant additional work in terms of supporting potentially poorly performing students, " Ms Dandridge added.

BBC: Willetts warns universities over foreign student grades

Our list is based on tuition, room and board, book costs, and other assorted fees from the 2011-12 academic year, the latest for which complete data is available.

FORBES: America's Most Expensive Colleges

Prof Christy makes the distinction - crucial to scientists - between draft papers for discussion and final, complete ones that go into academic journals and become part of the formal literature of science.

BBC: Climate science and acts of creation

The city's university held an academic conference on European issues in February - but no extravaganza, complete with fireworks and carnivals, is planned.

BBC: Is Brighton the next Maastricht?

In this series, I tell stories of successful business owners who did not complete college, and focused their education on street-smarts in the real world, rather than on academic theory in classrooms.

FORBES: The Education of an Entrepreneur, Episode 2: The Story of Danielle LaPorte