Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what proportion of students dropped out of the first year of their university course between 2020 and 2023.

Figures on non-continuation following year one of entry are published by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) for full-time first-degree entrants starting higher education courses between 2015/16 and 2019/20. The statistics published by HESA are summarised in Table 1 in the accompanying excel attachment .

More recent information on continuation rates, which are the inverse of non-continuation or drop-out rates, for first year full-time degree entrants entering higher education are published by the Office for Students (OfS). The statistics published by OfS are summarised in Table 2 in the accompanying excel attachment.

Early in-year student withdrawal notifications are published by Student Loans Company (SLC) for the academic years 2018/19 through to 2022/23, and offer a more up-to-date indication of students not continuing their studies. The most recent publication has an effective date of 31 May of each academic year. The statistics published by SLC are summarised in Table 3 in the accompanying excel attachment.