More figures show drop in uni applications

**Latest figures from universities admission body UCAS reveal that almost 54,000 fewer students started university in 2012 than in 2011, signaling a record fall in the number of students accepting places.**

UCAS have attributed the decline of undergraduates to the rise in tuition fees and the demise of the gap year, but suggest that these figures are likely to be exaggerated.

They propose that the total number of students who started university in 2011 was boosted by applications from individuals who would otherwise have taken a gap year, had it not been for the increase in fees.

This year however, when the new policy on fees came into action, prospective students were more likely to take a gap year. UCAS suggest that the drop in the number of people starting university in 2012 appears much sharper than it is in reality – not all students were turned away by the increase in fees, they simply decided to take a gap year, the admissions body claim.

Whilst is difficult to directly compare figures (this is the first year that the statistics on the number of people starting university have published), 2011 saw a 12 percent decrease in applicants, and 2012, a 15 percent decrease in the number of students taking up places.

Latest application figures for 2013 admission also show an 8 percent fall on the number of students who had applied by this time last year, the lowest number for six years.

The fact that the number of students applying and attending university has continued to fall, has led some statisticians to think this is more than a temporary flux in figures.

They fear that this indicates a more permanent pattern of decline in the number of students choosing to progress to higher education.

First-year Maths student Luke Williams said: “I know people who had to take a gap year purely to save up before coming to uni. Either that, or they disregarded it as an option altogether.”

Other findings from the report indicate a sharp gender divide in applications, with girls proving more likely to both apply and secure a place at a top institution, than boys.

The statistics also suggest that it is the poorest students that are proving most likely to secure places at leading universities.

Some have ascribed the rise in applications from less advantaged students to the fact that, unlike middle- and lower-income families, disadvantaged students receive financial support from the government towards the cost of their studies.

Peter Dunn, Warwick’s head of communications said that the University does a lot to help students from economically deprived backgrounds. He todd the _Boar_: “Warwick does a great deal to encourage students from poorer backgrounds to go to university . You can see from the report that whilst applications overall fell last year, the number of disadvantaged young people applying to university actually increased.”

UCAS’ chief executive, Mary Curnock Cook said agreed, she said: “The continuing increase in participation from more disadvantaged groups is very encouraging.”

However, Chuka Umunna, Labour’s business secretary pointed out “it is, as ever, middle- and lower-income families who are being hit hardest”.

First-year French and History student Alice Dodden said she wasn’t at all deterred by the fee increases.

“I knew I’d just get a loan and be done with it”, she said. “Obviously I don’t like thinking about being thirty grand in debt just for tuition, let alone all the other stuff, but me and my friends all knew that we were going to uni no matter how much we had to pay.

“That being said, if it wasn’t for my parents helping me out and having a part-time job, it’d be tricky to get by.”

“I can see why people whose parents can’t afford to support them financially would reconsider university. My friends’ parents had to take out an extra loan to pay for her accommodation, the standard accommodation loan wasn’t enough.”