Following a number of controversies in the late 2000s involving overseas affiliates, cheating and student visas,[2] a decision was made to abolish the university as it then existed.

The University of Wales held its first graduation ceremony in 1897, awarding a BSc to Maria Dawson.

In 2003, both of these colleges became full constituent institutions and in 2004, UWCN received permission from the Privy Council to change its name to the University of Wales, Newport.

The Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama subsequently left the university in January 2007.

In November 2008, Aberystwyth, Bangor and Swansea Universities decided to exercise their right to register students to study for their own awarded degrees.

[6] In October, the university announced that it would cease validating courses, just before news broke that one of its affiliated colleges in London was involved in a visa fraud.

In August 2017, a deed of union was approved by the University of Wales and UWTSD, which integrated the two universities into a single functional body prior to a full legal constitutional merger; as of February 2020 this full merger has not been finalised.

[21] The first edition of Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru (The University of Wales Dictionary), which has the same status for Welsh as the OED does for English, was completed in 2002, eighty-two years after it had been started.

The University of Wales Press[22] was founded in 1922 and publishes around seventy books a year in both English and Welsh.

[36][37] The University of Wales Trinity Saint David (UWTSD) already had its own degree awarding powers, inherited from Saint David's College, Lampeter, which were put into abeyance when Lampeter joined the University of Wales in 1971.

When the merger between UWTSD and the University of Wales is complete, the new unified institution will award degrees under the historic 1828 royal charter of Saint David's College.