Universities "bribing" student

[Troutius183]

"Does anybody else feel that it is wrong for universities to offer a monetary "kickstart" as an incentive for joining it through clearing. I bring this up because I received a private message through The Student Room from a certain university offering me £500.
Should someone not join a university purely for academic reasons. I would understand if this was a relatively well respected university, and this "bribe" was likely to help me choose this university over another, but the university was not well known or well respected..."
Just a discussion that I found on the student room, wondered what you guys thought about this.

[JanetBlyton]

Market forces but if they have to pay you they probably aren't a good one!

[JeffreysMummyisCross]

I think the odd thing here is that you were approached via TSR. Those are rather desperate tactics for a university to be adopting, and would certainly incline me to steer well clear.

[AugustDay]

I don't think their is anything odd or unusual about Unis offering bribes. Didn't Euan Blair get a £50k bribe scholarship to go to Yale even though he only had a 2:1

TSR pms are a bit pushy but I imagine everyone gets them. I think you can turn PMs off on TSR.

There is lots of competition between universities.

[MaudGonneMad]

Lots of unis do this in one form or another (discounted accommodation, free iPads, etc). Good ones as well. Haven't heard of cash bribe before.