UK universities valued more than institutions like parliament and BBC, finds survey

King’s College London’s Maughan Library. The survey also found that only 19% of respondents thought university should be mainly state-funded. Photograph: Andrew Hamilton/Alamy

The British public values the UK’s universities more highly than the legal system or the BBC, according to a survey of attitudes towards higher education by King’s College London.

Prof Bobby Duffy, the director of King’s College London’s policy institute, said universities came behind only the NHS, the armed forces and the royal family in a league table of UK institutions considered to be among the best in the world by the public.