Ucas figures show poorest not put off applying to university

The news that university application numbers have fallen will be no surprise to many, in light of the unpopular tuition fee rises which will come into action in the next academic year. With fees almost trebling, the experience of university will become a distant dream for those who have been priced out of the market, who now recoil at the prospect of beginning working life saddled with around £40,000 worth of debt. What is surprising, however, is that it is not the poorest students that have been the most affected.

The recent headlines reporting an 8.7% fall in applications to undergraduate courses by UK students, is perhaps a surprisingly low drop in response to such a massive fee increase and certainly much lower than many experts predicted.

Many feared that university education would become an even more elitist process, as students coming from the lowest income backgrounds, who are already disproportionately underrepresented in UK institutions, may be priced out of the market altogether.

Yet figures show that applications from the most disadvantaged students fell by just 0.2%, whilst applications from the wealthiest areas saw falls of 2.5%. Whilst it may be encouraging to see that the increased fees have not deterred low-income applications to the extent that was originally feared, it should be remembered that this is a group who were already three times less likely to apply to university before the fee changes. The generous bursary packages promised by the coalition in order to ease the burden on those from lower-income homes along with the fact that this demographic have arguably never found a university education an affordable prospect, may go some way to explaining these figures.

Many fear for the ‘squeezed middle classes’, those students from households earning too much to take advantage of the bursary concessions yet too little to shoulder the burden themselves. Already thought to have been hit disproportionately hard by the coalition’s deficit reducing cuts, perhaps it wouldn’t be too far-fetched to argue that this group may be the real casualties of the fees hike.

However, Ucas figures show that whilst applications from this group have fallen further than those on lower incomes, by around 1%, they have not fallen quite so dramatically as top level income students.

It is not just socioeconomic divisions that tell an interesting story; the latest figures show the gap between applications from male and female students are widening, as the dominance of female applicants continues. Explanation for these figures is difficult to find; whether it is a direct result of the fee rise or simply a continuation of a deeper gender divide may only be determined through a longer term study.

The fee increases have had a more obvious effect on mature students applying for an undergraduate degree, generally with a correlation between falls in applications and an increase in age. The question as to whether fee increases have reduced the viability of gaining a degree later in life, or whether those wishing to do so managed to avoid the higher fee levels by beginning their studies last year, will only really be answered over time.

Of course the fee rises are just one of many factors influencing potential students’ attitudes towards university. The record high levels of youth unemployment reported in December could work either way – increasing the need for better qualifications to bag one of the few jobs going, or reducing the certainty that an investment in a university education would actually yield better prospects. With families feeling the pinch, traditional, informal avenues of student finance, such as the ever popular ‘Bank of Mum and Dad’, may be less able to help alleviate the hardship of living costs and offer emergency bail outs.

In the eyes of a long-term perspective, university application numbers can only tell so much of the wider story. Some take the figures as a piece of convincing evidence that the increased fees have done little to dampen the enthusiasm for a British university education, optimistically noting that past increases have always caused a slight fall in applications before normalising within a few years. Others are more pessimistic, placing the new fee levels of British degrees amongst the more favourable pricing of universities abroad. In the meantime, it remains clear that the government must work hard to maintain accessibility for all.