Thankfully, it does not offer courses in geography.

Page two of Glasgow College's prospectus states boldly: "Glasgow, Scotland's largest city, is situated in the heart of the Highlands."

Glasgow College is another of the newly established private education institutions in Scotland which targets overseas students, typically offering courses in subjects such as IT, accounting, business and management.

Unlike some of the other private institutions in the city, such as Great Regent College, it makes no grand boasts about its campus. That may be because it is sandwiched between a furniture warehouse and a carpet store on the first floor of a shabby two-storey building on Seaward Street in Tradeston.

Despite repeated telephone calls and a visit to the shuttered premises, The Herald has not been able to make contact with the men behind Glasgow College, Abdul Qayum Mughal, 57, and Abdul Qadeer Mughal, 35.

Both men live in Leeds and the younger Mr Mughal is a director of a firm called Securitec Securities as well as being one of the directors of the college. It is believed they may have closed the college in order to take a holiday.

The college has chosen to register its internet site, www.glasgowcollege.ac, in the Ascension Islands rather than the UK in order to take advantage of the country code "ac". This suffix is easily confused with that used by all officially recognised colleges and universities in the UK, whose web addresses all end with ".ac.uk".

Tucked away in an alley close to the River Clyde is Glasgow's newest private college.

Middlesex College, not to be confused with Middlesex University in London, is preparing to open its doors for business later this year.

Norman Mangi, the man-ager overseeing the venture, said the reason for their use of the "ac" suffix was "to look like academic".

Middlesex is an established private college based in a street off Oxford Street in central London which is branching out in Scotland, partly because of the Scottish Executive's Fresh Talent scheme, which allows foreign students to extend their visas at the end of their studies.

He said: "We want our students to get value for money; to get both an education and some experience, to study and work.

"This is why Fresh Talent can give Scotland an edge over England and make Scotland more attractive."

He said the college targeted overseas students over home students because: "We are interested in students who pay fees, and that means mostly overseas students."