Only a handful of categories - for Best Paper, Best Magazine, Best Photographer and Best Journalist existed - along with awards for student radio.
Meanwhile, the broadcast categories were dropped after the judges consistently reported insufficient quality to yield a shortlist.
The NUS meanwhile, launched the National Student Journalism Awards, which have been sponsored by The Independent (1999-2002), The Daily Mirror (2003-2005), The Press Association (2006- 2015) and Citizen Training (2016-) The Awards are launched in July each year, with a closing date at the beginning of September.
Typically students are required to send their best three articles from the past academic year to be critiqued by a panel of senior national journalists.
The winners and runners-up in each category, along with an overall student reporter of the year, are announced at a London ceremony at the beginning of December.