§ Mr. SteinbergTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many students enrolled for degree courses in each year since 1995. [108009]
§ Mr. WicksThe available information is given in the table. 1997 entrant numbers may have been inflated because entrants who might otherwise have taken a gap year decided not to as they were influenced by the knowledge that fees would be introduced with effect from 1998. Comparable data for 1999–2000 will be published by the Higher Education Statistics Agency in April.
Entrants to first degree courses in higher education institutions in the UK 1 Year of entry Entrants 1995 348,211 1996 349,130 1997 358,560 1998 350,321 1 Full-time and part-time courses, excluding the Open University and HE students in FE colleges UCAS figures covering full-time and sandwich undergraduate courses only, show that the number of UK domiciled applicants accepted for entry increased by 1.6 per cent. between autumn 1998 and autumn 1999.