The incoming vice-chancellor, Prof Frances Bowen, credits the student-focused approach at the University of Essex for its soaring rankings and high satisfaction rating

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At the University of Essex’s open days this summer, only a few staff took particular notice of one inquisitive visitor talking to prospective students and parents – but that “mystery shopper” turned out to be Essex’s next vice-chancellor. Prof Frances Bowen became Essex’s senior leader in August, and took advantage of her anonymity before that to see its Colchester campus through the eyes of potential applicants and their families.

What stood out from her undercover experience was that “the passion for the place was really clear from our students, from staff,” – as well as the more surprising perspectives of parents touring the campus.

The time and money you invest in education should be repaid by a rewarding career, but is that always the case?

Is a university degree still worth it? That question has been asked for decades but with increased frequency over the last 10 years, as the cost of taking a degree has shifted from government to graduates.

The short answer is: yes it is, according to experts such as the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS). But as undergraduates in England now finish their courses with tuition and maintenance loans averaging £53,000 , the longer answer is that it’s complicated.

Clearing has never been easier to navigate. So if you’ve changed your mind about courses, or your results are not what you expected, here’s how it works

Five years ago, predictions for the 2025 university admissions cycle were looking bleak for students. With a rising number of 18-year-olds in the UK, many assumed it would be a competitive scramble for places – but reality has unfolded rather differently.

“This year, the demand just isn’t there,” says Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute. “International numbers are down, there’s spare capacity, and more universities – even very selective ones – are opening places through clearing. Students now hold more power than expected.”

Sarah Hunter and Lou Meadows pinpoint when it all clicked for Red Roses ahead of their World Cup quarter-final

Earning the right to win each game may be the Red Roses’ mantra at this Rugby World Cup but making history on home soil is the goal Sarah Hunter and Lou Meadows are working to orchestrate. England’s assistant coaches describe themselves as complementary, bringing diverse experience that creates a “good blend” alongside the forwards coach, Louis Deacon, and the head coach, John Mitchell, with the Red Roses unbeaten under the New Zealander’s tenure.

In a hotel meeting room on the outskirts of Bristol as England enter the business end of the tournament, Hunter and Meadows explain how the coaching setup offers “different lenses” for tactics and planning. The duo have brought a sharp, strategic edge to the hosts’ defence and attack and for 40 minutes they range over a series of topics, including picking in which game this England side have come closest to perfection.

Pompey midfielder considers playing in first South Coast derby league meeting in 13 years bucket-list worthy

Inside a blue and white dugout at Portsmouth’s training ground John Swift is reliving the childhood he spent a few miles away, across the harbour in Gosport. He maps out the view he had from his front door on Dukes Road and the Forton park sports court that was his playground. It was while enjoying a kickabout there with friends, approaching his 11th birthday, that his mother, Pauline, called him in to advise he was being released by Pompey. “I remember, quite vividly, sitting on the sofa as my mum read me the letter,” he says. “And then I was almost just like: ‘Can I go back out and play?’”

At that age it was hard to comprehend what it really meant and a couple of weeks later he was representing Pace Youth, a team in Totton, the other side of Southampton. As Portsmouth prepare to face Southampton in the Championship on Sunday, the first league match between fierce rivals in 13 and a half years, the rivalry is not lost on Swift. The last meeting came in the Carabao Cup third round in 2019, when Saints ran out 4-0 winners. Then, Southampton were in the Premier League, 51 places above third-tier Pompey. Now they are equals in the Championship.

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I was afraid to be near people for two-and-a-half years, but then I got a chance to meet the band I loved – and the experience changed everything

I have always had a degree of health anxiety, but when Covid hit, it really spiked. At home with the family, I made sure we washed all our food and even then I didn’t feel safe eating it. I would bring in the post and then be worried about touching the front door. I’d shower for ages, trying to wash the virus away.

I’m a journalist, so before the anxiety set in I was a pretty outgoing and adaptable person. But from the start of lockdown until September 2022, I didn’t go anywhere indoors other than home or the hospital. I didn’t even walk down a street for a year and a half, for fear of passing too close to someone.

Newcastle building society aims for those with smaller deposits and no help hoping to get on to housing ladder

First-time buyers are being offered the chance to borrow up to 98% of the price of a property – but they cannot get help with their deposit from the bank of mum and dad.

Newcastle building society’s First Step mortgage is designed to help those who have been saving to get on the housing ladder.

Feminism exposed the ubiquity of child abuse, rape, sexual harassment and domestic violence – and helped fight that culture

I was there. I kept the receipts. I remember how normalized the sexual exploitation of teenage girls and even tweens by adult men was, how it showed up in movies, in the tales of rock stars and “baby groupies”, in counterculture and mainstream culture, how normalized rape, exploitation, grooming, objectification, commodification was.

The last Woody Allen movie I ever saw was Manhattan , in which he cast himself as more or less himself, a dweeb in his mid-40s, dating a high school student played by Mariel Hemingway. She was my age, 17, and I was only too familiar with creeps, and the movie creeped me out, even though it was only long afterward that I read that she said he was at the time pressuring her to get sexually involved with him in real life.

Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. She is the author of Orwell’s Roses and co-editor with Thelma Young Lutunatabua of the climate anthology