Universities: Admissions
(asked on 13th July 2017) - View Source
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the effect of the (a) increase in tuition fees, (b) abolition of maintenance grants, (c) abolition of nurses' bursaries, (d) rate of interest on student debt and (e) decision to freeze the student loan repayment threshold in cash terms on the number of (i) university applications and (ii) nursing applications.
The Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) publish data on the number of applicants by the 30 June deadline. UCAS data covers applications to full-time undergraduate courses only.
Data for the 2017 cycle is available here:
The Government is committed to maintaining the UK’s world class higher education system while living within its means and ensuring all those with the talent to benefit from a higher education can afford to do so. To put higher education funding onto a more sustainable footing, the Government asked future graduates to meet more of the costs of their studies through replacing maintenance grants with loans.
Tuition fees will not increase in real terms and Higher Education and publicly funded institutions will remain free at the point of access for those who are eligible, as tuition fee loans will increase to cover increased tuition fees.
In practice, the people who are affected by the decision to charge an interest rate of up to RPI+3% are those high-earning borrowers who pay back all, or very nearly all, their student loans; many of those who do not fully pay back their loans will see this part of their loan balance written off.
Freezing the repayment threshold enabled the Government to abolish student number controls – lifting the cap on aspiration and enabling more people to realise their potential.
To deliver more nurses and other health professionals for the NHS, a better funding system for healthcare students, and a sustainable model for universities, the funding system and financial support offered to most undergraduate nursing, midwifery and allied health professional students is being changed. From 1 August 2017, new undergraduate students will receive tuition fee loans and, for full-time courses, living costs support, administered by the Student Loans Company, rather than NHS bursaries.
Entry to nursing, midwifery and allied health profession remains competitive, with a ratio of nearly two applicants per nurse training place. Health Education England commissioned 23,285 nursing and midwifery places for the 2016/17 academic year. The overall numbers of applicants to English providers from all domiciles is 44,160 as of the June 2017 UCAS deadline. Health Education England therefore remain confident that they will be able to fill the number of training places required to meet NHS workforce requirements and are working with the university sector to support student recruitment in 2017/18.