Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment she has made of trends in the level of non-continuation rates at higher education institutions; and whether her Department has analysed the reasons for the proportions of students who do not complete degree courses; and if she will make a statement.

Figures on non-continuation following year one of entry to higher education (HE) are published by the Higher Education Statistics Agency for full-time first-degree entrants starting courses between 2015/16 and 2019/20. Further information is available in Table T3 at: https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/performance-indicators/non-continuation.

More recent information on continuation rates (which are the inverse of non-continuation) for first year full-time degree entrants entering HE are published by the Office for Students (OfS). This is available at: https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/data-and-analysis/access-and-participation-data-dashboard/data-dashboard/.

For further information on the percentage of students that dropped out of the first year of their university course between 2015 and 2023, I refer the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington to the answers of 13 September to Questions 197774 and 197775.

Limited sources of research are available highlighting reasons for non-continuation for students within HE. However, some older research covering this issue was released in 2014 and is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/learning-from-futuretrack-dropout-from-higher-education.

This study suggests that most students who drop out of university cite ‘personal’ reasons, while others say they have decided they do not want to go to university.

The government believes every student should receive education of high quality, equipping them for future careers. Continuation rates are an important indicator of quality, alongside completion and progression to professional employment or further study. Since October 2022, the OfS has monitored whether HE courses at registered providers are meeting new minimum thresholds for student outcomes, including course continuation and completion rates, as part of the B3 condition of registration. The OfS examines the data to identify courses which fail to meet the minimum expected standards for student outcomes. It has launched 18 investigations to consider whether there have been breaches of condition B3 and we expect the results to be published in the near future. These investigations consider the reasons for providers' data. On 17 July, we announced a package of reforms aimed at improving the quality of HE provision across the sector. The Prime Minister said then, and in his speech to the Conservative Party Conference, that the government will stop universities offering low value ‘rip-off degrees’.