§ Mrs. Renée Shortasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what has been the annual change in the number of university places over the last 20 years.
§ Mr. WaldegraveInformation on the numbers of places available at universities over the last 20 years is not available as there have been no fixed allocations for student entry. The following information relates to the numbers of first year full-time and sandwich undergraduates—both home and from overseas—at universities in Great Britain.
504W
Percentage change from the previous year 1960–61 29,510 — 1961–62 32,160 9 1962–63 33,677 5 1963–64 34,733 3 1964–65 39,568 14 1965–66 *52,225 32 1966–67 53,575 3 1967–68 57,127 7 1968–69 59,378 4
Percentage change from the previous year 1969–70 62,219 5 1970–71 63,595 2 1971–72 64,963 2 1972–73 66,111 2 1973–74 67,201 2 1974–75 70,689 5 1975–76 74,702 6 1976–77 77,323 4 1977–78 80,930 5 1978–79 82,891 2 1979–80 83,770 1 1980–81 †83,620 1 1981–82 81,190 -3 1982–83 79,000 -3 * With effect from 1965–66 students from the Colleges of Advanced Technology, previously counted as taking advanced further education courses were included as university entrants. † Figures for 1980–81 and later years are not directly comparable with previous figures because the basis of calculation was changed by the Universities Statistical Record to exclude tranferees between universities. However the percentage changes have been calculated to take account of the change of definition. ‡ Provisional.