University applications from UK students for the first year of higher tuition fees are down by 8.7%, according to figures from the admissions service.
With fees rising to up to £9,000 per year, the impact has been biggest for England’s universities – down by 9.9%.
The LibDem Voice team have been quick to respond. Mark Pack pointed out three key facts about the figures:
1. Proportion of poor school-leavers applying to uni. at record levels
2. Best year ever for applications by teenagers save last year’s spike
3. Drop in mature student applications, which has caused the overall decrease figure
And Stephen Tall
has a full commentary on his blog:
Headlines you won’t read today: University applications up this year more than 16%*
Yes, you read that headline right: applications to university have gone up by 16% this year — when compared with 2009:
2009 – 464,167 applications (by Jan. deadline)
2012 – 540,073 (+16%)I’m being deliberately selective, of course. This year’s round of applications — the first under the new fees regime — show a drop of 7.4% compared with last year (2011: 583,546), or a 5.3% drop compared with the year before (2010: 570,556). (Source: UCAS website; also for graph below.)
The point of my misleading headline is simple: headline figures can easily mislead.
My co-editor at Lib Dem Voice Mark Pack has previously analysed some of the underlying questions that need to be asked before rushing to judgement: for example, that the number of 18 year-olds is in demographic decline, leading to a natural fall in numbers applying to university. If you look at the application figures for 17 and 18 year-olds there has been a decline of 2.5% from 2011 to 2012. Co-incidentally this more or less matches the fall in the birth-rate from 1992 to 1993 (18 years ago).
There is also the simple fact that last year’s figures were higher as students rushed to beat the introduction of £9k fees, with fewer opting, for instance, to take gap years — so no surprise then that one of the biggest falls in university applications of any age group is among 19 year-olds (down 12.5%).
The biggest driver behind the fall in university application figures this year compared with 2011 is that fewer mature students have applied to university — as also happened in 1998, after Labour first introduced fees. It’s clear mature students are the most ‘price-sensitive’.
You can read Stephen’s full post, complete with graph, here.
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17 Comments
Are all these figures each year cited as applications to begin study in a particular year, or applications made during a particular year’s application process? So, if someone applied before 15th January 2012 would they be counted? Or only if the application was to begin studying in September 2012?
As I recall it, people intending to take a gap year still apply in the final year of school but state that they are applying for deferred entry for 2013, say, in this case. So these headline figures could be agnostic as to whether the applicants concerned were wanting to take a gap year or not.
Given that, for example, we know that some universities are up (like here at Brooks, even though we have indicated we want to reduce intake by 10-15% to please the local NIMBYs) it would be interesting to see whether people are ditching universities that are perceived to be overpricing themselves compared with their reputation. So maybe people who figured they were only likely to get into a lower tier institution wanting 9k are being more discriminating. Which in itself would be a useful market indicator beginning to emerge.
“My co-editor at Lib Dem Voice Mark Pack has previously analysed some of the underlying questions that need to be asked before rushing to judgement: for example, that the number of 18 year-olds is in demographic decline, leading to a natural fall in numbers applying to university. If you look at the application figures for 17 and 18 year-olds there has been a decline of 2.5% from 2011 to 2012. Co-incidentally this more or less matches the fall in the birth-rate from 1992 to 1993 (18 years ago).”
As was pointed out first time around, the bulk of those currently applying were born in 1994, not 1993:
https://www.libdemvoice.org/how-do-the-university-application-figures-match-up-against-my-five-questions-25700.html#comment-186898
How does ‘The Voice’ explain the fact that people rushed to university in 2011, if the new system is so great? What I find so odd about this debate, is that so-called ‘Orange Book’/ free market Lib Dems appear to dispute a fairly basic economic rule; if you increase the price of something, demand falls. The IFS has calculated that for each £1,000 increase in fees, university participation falls by 4.4%. Similarly a research paper by the LSE Economists Dalton and Lin showed that the introduction of £9k fees reduce demand for HE for boys by 7.5% and from girls by 4.9%.
Between 1990 and 2001 the number of births in England fell in every year except one, in total by over 100,000. University applications from school-leavers are likely to fall pretty much every year well into the next Parliament.
Want proof? http://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2009-01-28d.250775.h
We know the number of applications per univ, as well as the fees, waivers, and bursaries of each univ. I have analysed the links – and the results will be up on http://centreforumblog.wordpress.com/ tomorrow morning!
“Between 1990 and 2001 the number of births in England fell in every year except one, in total by over 100,000.”
But the decrease from 1993 to 1994 was much smaller than from 1992 to 1993 – only about 1.3% – so it doesn’t in fact “more or less match” this decrease in the number of applications.
Admittedly it’s probably a rather pedantic point, and in pressing it perhaps all I’m doing is falling into the trap set by the article above – of discussing the small drop in the number of teenage applicants, rather than the huge drop in the number of mature applicants.
Unbelieivable….So we have LESS university applicants ever, yet your headline states the most ever young people, EXCEPT LAST YEAR. and then the posters go on to making stupid statements like comparing birthrates….staggering, just staggering.
Face the facts, you said NO increase in fees, then agrred to increase them, and now you are trying to spin the figures, let me put you straight, FEWER APPLICANTS. Spin it however u like.
Peter Taylor. What you omit to mention is that the price only increases to those who can afford more. Sadly scare mongering by labour confused people causing the spike in applications as many chose to forego their pre university gap year and postpone it.
The underlying argument seems to be “school leavers still want to go to university, therefore our policies are justified.”
That must be non sequitur of the week, at lease.
I listened to the minister explaining away the serious drop in mature students…”Because those in work are less likely to take time out for further qualifications”….
My question would have been… “Why, with record numbers of people being made redundant, would that not have been more than balanced out by such people wanting further qualifications?”
Weren’t we told that most mature students are part-time students? Therefore, with the change so that part-time students pay nothing up front, wouldn’t you expect no decline or even an increase in mature student applications?
Tabman: What low regard you have for students. Apparently they make huge decisions like this based soley on “scare mongering by Labour” which then confused them. The price of higher education has increased for 70% of graduates. http://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/5354
I think the drop in mature students is the thing to watch. Most of other smallish variations in 18-year-olds is too subject to spun explanations. (Most of the explanations above are plausible, but it needs a sophisticated statistician to extract real conclusions from the figures, if it is possible at all.)
Mature students are those who didn’t get a chance at 18, or those whose for various reasons, messed it up then (often because they were immature then). As graduates they are valuable increase in the overall body of the overall national stock of education. ( I won’t make the case that seems to go by default that more education = more economic progress . There are a lot of other and more long term benefits, even for some who don’t complete their course.)
The other part of the mature student story is what is happens to institutes of part-time study such as Birkbeck and the Open University. As some government grant to the OU has been replaced by making (some) OU students able to have student loans, fees are being increased, but with transitional arrangements.
The full story on mature students will take several years to emerge.
@Ian
The OU is not dealing with the situation well. They have provided contradictory information to current students and are now failing to announce further changes. Particularly badly affected are those students who took a broad span of modules and/or planned two qualifications (the OU double major was a common result of flexible study), as current guidance seems to indicate that not only will the student receive no support in completing their second qualification, which is understandable, but they will likely forfeit any support if they continue a second, even if self-funded (it’s complicated). Worse, they may be forced to lose what they’ve already done towards one of their degree paths (again, it’s complicated). They are also canceling courses in an ungodly rush, especially the small taster courses, which are not compatible with the part time fee requirements. Many people working towards smaller certificates will have a nasty shock when they find out it’s all been cancelled in favour of loan-friendly timetables.
The OU have bunged all their eggs into the first-time undergraduate market, which seems like a betrayal of their original aim, but then betrayal is this generation’s must-wear colour so they are only following fashion.
UoL external are suspiciously silent about Sept 2012. I doubt they know what they’re doing themselves.
For those looking to do an ELQ, the likely answer is to shop internationally (or move).
@Paul Walter
“Weren’t we told that most mature students are part-time students? Therefore, with the change so that part-time students pay nothing up front, wouldn’t you expect no decline or even an increase in mature student applications?”
I don’t think the figures include part-time applications at all. So it’s possible (pure speculation) that even more mature students have opted for part-time study now that the major disincentive for doing so (ineligibility for student loans) has been removed.
@Ivan
“The underlying argument seems to be ‘school leavers still want to go to university, therefore our policies are justified.’
That must be non sequitur of the week”
No, the underlying argument is clearly “school leavers still want to go to university, therefore those who confidently predicted that the increase in fees would put them off are wrong”. That’s not the only argument that was made against the new scheme (and certainly not the only one against our MPs’ disgraceful abandonment of a clear pledge), but it was certainly an argument, advanced quite forcefully by many, and these figures, properly analysed, tend to suggest that it was incorrect. That’s all.
What choice do bright 18 year olds have but to go to university?
The job market is in crisis and any that are advertised want degree qualified staff.
Inelastic demand doesn’t justify a 40% tax band starting at £21k