As a professor and data journalist, I've been compiling university guides since 1998. My own perspective on higher education has changed in recent years, particularly since I became the dad of three university students myself.I helped my children choose their universities. And I’ve seen and heard what impacts their student experience; when they feel hard done by, when they have learned something that will really help them in life.I’ve put that knowledge and insight into creating a university guide for our times. The Daily Mail ranks institutions on the things that actually matter to today’s students and their parents, from job prospects to financial support and student lifestyles.However you arrive at Clearing today, the Daily Mail Clearing Guide 2026 can help you find the place most suited to your needs with its new university and subject rankings, based on data published in the past month, alongside detailed profiles of every institution.Going through clearing? Don't miss the Daily Mail's definitive league table and guide to every university in Britain ‘I helped my children choose their universities,’ writes Daily Mail University Guide Editor Alastair McCall. ‘I’ve seen and heard what impacts their student experience’Are you still deciding which university to go to? I'm Alastair McCall, one of the UK's leading data journalists and Editor of the Daily Mail University Guide.I've spent years crunching the data to understand what makes a university stand out - from teaching quality and student experience to graduate salaries and career prospects. I've ranked every university in Britain, so whether you're applying yourself or you're a parent helping your child, I can show you which universities are best for your subject, where graduates earn the most, and much more.Click here to read the full guide The need for sound advice has never been greater. Students signing up for university over the coming days will be the first to pay more than £30,000 for their degrees – and that’s just the bill for tuition. Annual tuition fees for 2026-27 will be £9,790 with a baked-in rise to £10,050 already in place for 2027-28 and a further inflation-linked jump likely to be imposed for the final year of a typical three-year degree.With living costs on top of that, the average student in England is now graduating with more than £50,000 of loan debt.And then there is no guarantee of a job afterwards, with the graduate employment market at its most tricky in a generation.No wonder the question being asked in sixth forms and households up and down the country is whether the cost of university is even worth it.I believe that on balance it still is – as long as you choose carefully.This is a view shared by the government’s skills minister responsible for higher education, Jacqui Smith, who warned in June: ‘Going to university and getting a degree is one of the most transformational things a young person can do. But it is not a universal guarantee of success and not all degrees are equal.‘As well as the variation by subject, too many franchised and poor-quality courses do not offer a good deal to young people – selling the dream then leaving students in the lurch,’ Ms Smith said.‘My message to those thinking about university [is] choose carefully. Don’t walk into a degree by default.’This makes the choices of both university and course critical, because there are great universities and great courses to be found.And with 80,000 university places up for grabs in Clearing today, students are in the driving seat as never before when it comes to picking a university.That’s where the Daily Mail Clearing Guide comes in.At a time when getting a good job after university is a key priority for most students, our ranking is the only one to include three graduate employment measures – covering the proportion of recent graduates landing high-skilled jobs, the salaries being earned 15 months after leaving university, and graduates’ sense of their careers being on track.Our unique University Finder allows you to create a league table based on the performance indicators that matter most to you.So, if you want a university table that looks at those three employment measures alone, then you can zero the weightings on the other nine scoring measures we use.You will find your newly personalised league table features some of the Russell Group of research-led universities near the top, but also some lesser-known names that our guide brings to the fore. Universities such as Worcester, named as our 2027 University of the Year for Graduate Jobs. Here, 80% of graduates gain high-skilled jobs, ranking it 11th in the UK on this measure. Many of these jobs go to students on the university’s suite of healthcare courses and those on the teacher training programmes for which Worcester was first known.Cumbria, Derby, Robert Gordon, in Aberdeen, and Teesside join Worcester as modern universities that rank higher than 11 members of the Russell Group. So, don’t just look at the big guns when it comes to choosing a university. Let our guide help you identify where you stand the best chance of getting a good job afterwards. Such is the choice now on offer through Clearing that over 23,000 applicants have waited until today to enter the race for a university placeLook also at our 79 subject tables spanning a wide range of the study options available to identify the universities that excel in the subject you are interested in taking. The table toppers are not always the usual suspects. See Cumbria for biomedical sciences, Birmingham City for music, and Robert Gordon for physiotherapy.A 3.6% year-on-year growth in the number of places available through Clearing makes this a high-stakes day for prospective students and universities alike.Where Clearing was once considered to be the ‘last chance saloon’ for those at risk of missing out on university altogether, such is the choice now on offer that over 23,000 applicants have waited until today to enter the race for a university place.Others will decline their original choice this morning after receiving better-than-expected results, preferring to take a chance on Clearing coming up with something superior, with UCAS (the universities’ admissions service) expecting to see increased switching – more commonly known as trading up.If you are set on trying to get into a Russell Group university, there has never been a better moment. Once seldom seen in Clearing, 18 of the 24-strong group are now active players in the post-results recruitment market. Many are expanding fast.A Daily Mail analysis of UCAS admissions data shows the number of undergraduates recruited jumped by 25% or more at six institutions between 2023 and 2025 – University College London (51%, although mostly overseas students), Durham (47% and overwhelming made up of UK students), York (33%), Liverpool (32%), Warwick (26%) and Leeds (25%).In all, the Russell Group recruited an extra 26,000 undergraduates in 2025 compared to two years before. So, there are more places at the top table than you might think, and accessible with lower grades than once was the case.And as a direct consequence of this aggressive recruitment strategy, which has seen 17 of the Russell Group universities grow their undergraduate intake by at least 11.5% between 2023 and 2025, other institutions that would have previously taken many of those students are scrabbling around to fill places, meaning there is a huge amount of choice on offer in return for even lower grades.Alastair McCall is honorary professor of quantitative studies at the University of Buckingham and deputy director of its Centre for Education and Employment Research. He has been compiling and editing university guides since 1998.Going through clearing? Don't miss the Daily Mail's definitive league table and guide to every university in Britain