In preparation for Clearing, Staffordshire University is offering £500 scholarships to students if they enrol after August 13th. As students prepare themselves for the best or worst come Thursday, universities are using increasingly expensive tactics to woo potential students.

Besides Staffordshire University, others are offering waived fees, discount accommodation and even cash bursaries to those who join them at the last minute.

Staffordshire - along with other universities - has also prepared itself for a possible late influx by starting its clearing activities ahead of time. As in previous years this has been achieved through targeting students who took BTEC exams instead of A-Levels, as they got their results before the summer break.

Yet this year things are more competitive than ever before, as the government's recent decision to remove caps on student numbers has effectively allowed universities to recruit to capacity. It used to be that universities were fined for over-recruiting, but as Staffordshire's offers show, recruiting more students is now very much incentivised.

Image courtesy of Flickr, Creative Commons.