Universities: Admissions
(asked on 12th September 2017) - View Source
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of changes in the number of students taking up places at lower tariff universities and colleges in the last 12 months.
The Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) published data on the number of applicants placed by 1 September 2017. Note that UCAS data covers applications to full-time undergraduate courses only.
Data for the 2017 cycle is available here:
Figures on the number of placed applicants by tariff group are in table T.2 of the Tariff group (All domiciles) file:
https://www.ucas.com/file/123556/download?token=r4RoBQ1A.
Figures on the number of placed applicants by age for English domiciled students are in table C.4 of the Age file:
https://www.ucas.com/file/123436/download?token=K7VwwP9m.
Figures on the number of placed EU applicants (excluding the UK) are in table B.17 of the Country (All domiciles) file:
https://www.ucas.com/file/123431/download?token=nDwyyVKs.
We have provided guidance to the Director for Fair Access in 2016 and asked him to encourage institutions to make more effort in the area of recruiting more mature learners and this is reflected in guidance to institutions on access agreements. We are removing barriers to the growth of accelerated courses, which particularly appeal to mature students.
EU students make an important contribution to our universities and we want that to continue. To help provide certainty for EU students as we exit the EU, the Government has confirmed that EU students starting their courses in the academic year 18/19 or before will continue to be eligible for student loans and home fee status and will have a right to remain in the UK to complete their course. While it is disappointing to see the fall in EU numbers in the UCAS data, we welcome the rise in the number of 18 year olds from non-EU countries applying to study in the UK. This highlights that the UK is highly competitive in the global mobile student market, second only to the US in the number of international students we attract.