§ Mr. LlwydTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will provide a breakdown of the social backgrounds of(a) university applicants and (b) university students for each of the last five years. [149455]
§ Mr. WicksThe available information on full-time students, as given in the following table, covers only those who apply for full-time and sandwich undergraduate courses through the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS); data on the family background of students applying for part-time courses are not held centrally.
UK domiciled applicants and accepted applicants via UCAS to full-time and sandwich undergraduate courses in the UK Thousand Year of entry 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 Applicants Professional 49.9 48.4 47.0 46.5 45.8 Intermediate 139.0 150.3 147.3 144.8 144.7 Skilled non-manual 43.0 49.6 47.1 47.1 48.1 Skilled manual 58.2 60.7 58.9 58.5 57.2 Partly skilled 28.3 32.2 31.0 30.8 31.7 Unskilled 7.0 7.9 7.3 7.5 7.3 Unknown 39.4 49.2 51.0 53.5 54.3 Total 364.9 398.3 389.6 388.7 389.1 Accepted applicants Professional 39.3 39.6 38.5 38.9 38.8 Intermediate 105.0 117.4 115.6 115.7 117.7 Skilled non-manual 31.3 37.3 35.6 36.3 37.8 Skilled manual 40.9 44.8 44.2 44.5 44.4 Partly skilled 19.9 23.5 22.7 23.1 24.2 Unskilled 4.9 5.6 5.3 5.5 5.5 Unknown 27.1 35.0 36.6 39.1 40.3 Total 268.3 303.3 298.2 303.1 308.7