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The University of Wales (UoW) will cease to exist after mounting pressure to draw a line under a series of damaging revelations. Its chairman Hugh Thomas resigned on Friday. 
 
The university was a federation of institutions across the Principality, and its constituent parts will now go their separate ways. 
 
Two - Newport and Glyndwr, in Wrexham - will become independent universities, while Swansea Metropolitan will merge with Trinity St David, based in Lampeter and Carmarthen. 
 
The move follows allegations about a visa scam and failures to carry out proper checks on foreign colleges accredited by the university to award its degrees. 
 
An investigation revealed last week that overseas students at Rayat London College, in Hounslow, were sold diploma exam answers in advance of taking the test. 
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The diplomas gave them entry on to UoW MBA degrees, which allowed them to apply for UK visas, and exempted them from most of the work. 
 
The college, and nearby Lampton College where the exams were taken, have been suspended and are being investigated by the UK Border Agency. 
 
The revelations followed a scandal last year when the university, whose chancellor is the Prince of Wales, was forced to cut all ties with a college in Malaysia which awarded UoW degrees when it was revealed that its director Fazley Yaakob, a Malaysian pop star, had bogus qualifications. 
 
Another institution linked to UoW, the Accademia Italiana in Bangkok, was operating illegally, according to Thai authorities. 
 
The findings regarding the overseas colleges led to a damning report from the Quality Assurance Agency which found serious shortcomings in the way the university worked with some of its 130 associated colleges around the world. 
 
It said the university had failed to carry out thorough checks at several overseas institutions and it warned the UoW to review its practices abroad &quot;as a matter of urgency&quot;. 
 
Vice-chancellors of other Welsh universities had led calls for the scrapping of the UoW. 
 
The new merged Swansea Met-Trinity university will now take the name &quot;University of Wales: Trinity St David&quot; and inherit what remains of the UoW's network of affiliated colleges. 
 
It will operate under the royal charter of Trinity Saint David, which dates back nearly 190 years. 
 
Over the decades, various colleges have come under the UoW banner, including Cardiff University, which now awards its own degrees. 
 
Past students include the Prince of Wales, who spent a term at Aberystwyth in spring 1969, Neil Kinnock, the former Labour leader, who met his wife Glenys at Cardiff, and Huw Edwards, the BBC presenter, who also studied at Cardiff. 
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