University of Bolton controversially drops town’s name and becomes University of Greater Manchester

29 comments

1. Wow how *controversial*. It’s *almost* as if the idea of going to university in Greater Manchester is infinitely more appealing…

2. Omg, imagine if it was mainly somewhere else such as Warwick University, Coventry.

   Luckily Bolton is as much part of Gtr Manchester as City of Manchester is

3. We’re Greater Manchester, we’re barmy
   We’re on the piss tonight!

4. Can’t polish a turd! This university’s been at the very bottom of the gutter in the rankings for as long as I can remember, it’s no surprise they’re trying a rebrand.

5. That’s just an attempt to trick international students. It’ll work as well.

   I loved my time training in Bolton, but the quality of my student colleagues from Bolton uni was not great

6. I have to doff my hat off to Andy Burnham for making every surrounding Manchester town want to be associated with the city.

   It’s on par with London’s orbital zones wanting to be associated with London at any cost. Take airports for example. London Luton airport, London Gatwick Airport, London Stansted Airport and London Southend-on-sea airport, all as far away from London as you can imagine but they love the badge of association.

   Now if only Leeds could get it’s act together and stop the fighting with its neighbouring towns and create a Greater Leeds area which would include all the neighbouring Yorkshire towns. Maybe then they might even get their much lusted for team system.

   Maybe Liverpool could also follow suit.

   Claps to Andy Burnham for all this work for Manchester great and hopefully the other northern big cities and towns could put petty little party politics aside and look out their city, surrounding towns and people first and have some balls to rival London to be the nation’s second, third or fourth major metropolitan region tied down to a primary city.

7. Graduate of Warwick University Business School, no doubt.

8. Ah, that old trick.

   See also Oxford Brookes and the University of the City of Birmingham. Both of whom presumably brand themselves to get students who think they’re going somewhere more prestigious.

9. Bolton has just become a new medical school which I’d have thought was more prestigious than any GM kudos, and changing the name risks applicants confusing it with the existing medical programme at Manchester. Without that factor, I can see why they are changing the name but with it, Bolton might be shooting itself in the foot.

10. I feel for the poor kids that fall for this, I was sat at the traffic lights outside of it, it was dirty and grimy, people spitting everywhere. Right next door to the college , a sixth form and a casino. The prefect thing to put right next door to impressional young adults.

11. If I was from Bolton, I’d say I was from greater Manchester too.

12. Well, that’s awkward for the University of Bolton Arena

13. Kid: can I go to the Russel group University of Manchester

    Mum: No we have University of Manchester at home.

14. Has a similar email from the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) today. They’re changing their name to the University of Lancashire.

    Kind of makes sense as they now have campuses across the county. But Lancaster also has a uni and they’re in Lancs, so might be confusing.

    Tbh, all feels like a lot of money wasted on marketing and related changes that would be better spent on uni facilities 🤷‍♂️

15. Gross.

    And we’re Lancashire, Greater Manchester can go fuck itself.

16. I feel sorry for the people who get duped by the name change. Imagine getting excited to go Uni just to realise it’s in bloody Bolton

17. Imagine thinking you are going to study in Manchester and end up in Bolton lol

18. Absolute horrible shit hole… but I got my undergrad there and it completely changed the trajectory of my life for the better.

19. Having been to Bolton multiple times, I feel sorry for the poor sods who get conned by this.

20. Not unlike Luton and Stansted being ‘London’ airports.

    But, Bolton is not and never will be, part of greater Manchester

21. Isn’t Bolton just one of many parts of “Greater Manchester” i.e. the whole region that includes the city of Manchester? How did The University of Manchester let them get away with that? No single London uni would be able to call themselves University of Greater London.

22. They should have gone with “Greater University of Manchester”. The problem with these ex-polys is they don’t have the confidence to properly sell themselves.

23. Are we talking about Bolton IHE here?

    They’ve come a long way…

24. Herriot-Watt Edinburgh named their business school “Edinburgh Business School” before the main Uni caught on.

    Well pissed off Edinburgh Uni.

25. Still in pain from Preston getting city status. Attaching itself to outlying city areas.

26. The larger an area in a university’s name the shitter that university is.

27. Next year they’re moving the building to Manchester

28. Reminds me of when UCE, one of the lowest performing universities in the country changed it’s name to Birmingham City University to confuse people with University of Birmingham, a genuinely good top 10 red brick uni.

29. A usual rule of thumb is “university of <region>” is not going to be great.

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