7th January 2014 9:00
By Blue Tutors
UCAS have reported that more young students than ever before began full-time undergraduate courses in 2013. Reported on the BBC website, the results suggest that it was premature to fear that increased tuition fees would lead to a significant drop in students applying to university. UCAS also said that there was a record number of disadvantaged students achieving a university place.
Mary Curnock Cook, the chief of UCAS, said that the dip in demand in 2012, following the introduction of £9,000 tuition fees, possibly gave students “pause for thought”, but that we appear to have quickly returned to the trend of increasing numbers of students applying to university. Almost 496,000 students began full-time university courses in 2013, and when we include students who deferred their application by a year, that means 40% of 19 year olds in England are in full-time education.
It was also pointed out that those students who applied were more likely to gain a university place, and had more choice over which university to go to. 85% of those who applied were awarded a university place, and top universities, referred to by UCAS as having a high tariff, offered 10% more places than in 2012, and many of those offers were at lower grades than usual; 17% of the offers were lower than ABB.
A big change over the last few years is that disadvantaged students, those eligible to receive free school meals, were 70% more likely to apply to university in 2013 than in 2004. However, within that group, young white students were less likely to apply than their Asian and black counterparts. Also, female students are a third more likely to apply than male students.