8 February 2018Times Higher Education 9NEWS
Admissions
UK university
applications down
1 per cent at
January deadline
The number of people seeking
places at UK universities by the
main January deadline has fallen for
a second consecutive year as a
rebound in interest from the Euro-
pean Union and a rise in inter-
national demand failed to make up
for a decline in applications from
students in the UK.
The admissions service Ucas said
that 559,030 candidates had sub-
mitted applications ahead of 15
January, down 5,160 (0.9 per cent)
on the same point last year, driven
by a 2.5 per cent drop in the size of
the UK’s 18-year-old population
and by shrinking demand from
mature students.
The proportion of UK 18-year-
olds applying to university has
climbed to a record high, with
37.1 per cent of school-leavers
hoping to enter higher education,
compared with 36.8 per cent last
year, but demographics meant that
the total number of applications
from this cohort fell by 4,
(1.6 per cent).
Meanwhile, the number of appli-
cants aged 19 and over contracted
by 6,810 (2.8 per cent).Oxford universities both struggling on state school recruitmentamong all age groups, following a
pattern of waning interest in health-
care courses since the scrapping of
NHS bursaries and the move to
standard £9,250 tuition fees at Eng-
lish universities and colleges last
year.
There is evidence in the Ucas
data of a widening gap between
male and female applicants across
all disciplines, with 18-year-old
women now 36 per cent more likely
to apply for higher education
courses than their male peers. This
equates to 36,000 “missing” male
applicants who would be needed for
gender parity.
The most advantaged students in
terms of socio-economic back-
ground are still 2.3 times more
likely to apply for university courses
than those from the most socially
disadvantaged group.
Alistair Jarvis, the chief executive
of Universities UK, said that while
the strong demand among 18-year-
olds was “positive”, “the continuing
drop in mature applicants must be
addressed by government if we are
going to meet future skills needs”.
The increase in international
applications, Mr Jarvis added,
showed that the UK “remains one
of the most attractive destinations
in the world for talented inter-
national students”.
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News, page 20The University of Oxford
has again topped a table
of UK universities with the
lowest share of students
pursuing a first degree
who come from state
schools.
But a data analysis by
Times Higher Education
can reveal that its near
neighbour Oxford Brookes
University actually per-
forms worse for young
state school entrants
once factors such as sub-
ject and school exam
results are accounted for.
The latest data,
released by the Higher
Education Statistics
Agency on 1 February,
show that 57.7 per cent
of young first-degree
entrants to Oxford Uni-
versity in 2016-17 were
from state schools, up
slightly from the 55.7 per
cent share in 2015-16.Other universities with
relatively low proportions
of new entrants from state
schools were the Univer-
sity of Cambridge (62.
per cent), Durham Uni-
versity (62.9 per cent)
and Imperial College Lon-
don (63.5 per cent)
However, once the
data are analysed to see
how far universities are
from their benchmark fig-
ure – an expected state
school share that takes
account of students’
qualifications and the
subject studied – Oxford
no longer tops the list.
Instead, theTHEana-
lysis suggests, Oxford
Brookes – where 73.7 per
cent of new students
came from state schools,
against a benchmark of
91.5 per cent – is the fur-
thest behind where it
should be.The other UK univer-
sities that are statistically
further below their bench-
mark than Oxford are
Bristol, Edinburgh, New-
castle and Durham.
Responding to the
figures,Alice Wilby, UK
recruitment and partner-
ships director at Oxford
Brookes, said that state
school recruitment was “a
complex area with many
variables affecting institu-
tions differently”.
The university is, she
said,“committed to
widening access and rec-
ognises the need to con-
tinue identifying and
implementing new
approaches to help
ensure that we are
attracting a diverse
student body from all
backgrounds”.
Ms Wilby pointed to
work that Oxford Brookeshad done in sponsoring a
local state school, offering
degrees through further
education colleges and
supporting mature stu-
dents, giving it a higher
proportion of older stu-
dents than the sector
average.
The Hesa data can befurther analysed to look
at benchmarks adjusted
for the areas from which
students come.Allowing
for this does not radically
change the list for those
performing worst on state
school entrants, but it
does help to identify
which universities aredoing well against bench-
marks.
For instance, Queen
Mary University of London
is the institution that has
the highest state school
intake compared with this
location-adjusted bench-
mark, followed by the uni-
versities of Portsmouth
and Surrey.
Overall across the UK,
the proportion of young
first-degree entrants from
state schools increased
by 0.1 percentage point
in 2016-17 to 90 per
cent.
There was also a
very slight rise in the
proportion of such stu-
dents from the most
disadvantaged areas
going into higher educa-
tion, from 11.3 per cent
in 2015-16 to 11.4 per
cent in 2016-17.
Simon Baker0Oxford Brookes UniversityUniversity of Bristol
University of EdinburghNewcastle UniversityUniversity of DurhamUniversity of ExeterUniversity of OxfordUCLUniversity of CambridgeImperialDistance from benchmark
expressed as Z-score
Source: Hesa, analysis byTHE. Z-score
shows how many standard deviations a
university is from its benchmark.Applications from other EU
nations rose by 3.4 per cent on the
same point last year, equating to
1,440 more students, offering some
hope to sector leaders who fear that
Brexit will lead to a collapse in
interest from the Continent. Inter-
national applications from non-
EU countries were up by 5,
(11.1 per cent).
This year’s decline in applications
follows a 5 per cent drop in appli-
cations at the same point last year,
which was driven in part by a 7 per
cent fall in interest from the EU.
The slide in the number of appli-
cations is likely to further increase
competition among universities
seeking to hit their recruitment
targets.
Ucas’ January deadline data also
reveal a 13 per cent drop in applica-
tions to nursing courses in Englandter to low-income students” by
providing financial aid rather than
“keeping the overall sticker price of
tuition for the college low”.
However, she said that this
“high-tuition [fee], high-aid” model
was “very complex” and in practice
was not well understood by low-
income students.
Terry Hartle, senior vice-
president for government and pub-
lic affairs at the American Council
on Education, added that tuition fee
freezes were a “double-edged
sword”: they are “easy to put in
place”, but fees tend to “jump con-
siderably” in subsequent years.
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Ten universities furthest below benchmark for
young state school entrants
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