University Applications Fall 10% In A Year

The number of students applying to university in 2011 was down by 10% compared to the previous year, Sky has learned.

The report to be published on Monday by the university application service UCAS, will show that many thousands of students will not continue into higher education.

Sky's deputy political editor Joey Jones said, "the government is preparing for a fairly ugly figure. Those people who have criticised the goverernment's plans on fees will say this suggests that people are being put off applying.

"I think the government will say there are reasons for this. Some of it is to do with demographics - there was a big spike in 18-year-olds last year. There is also the fact that some people decided to get in under the wire (before the new upper fee limit) and did not take a year off when they might otherwise have done.

"But clearly a drop of that magnitude is a concern for the government and they will be looking very closely at this to try and determine whether it is the case that people are being put off."

Month-by-month statistics measuring applicants for the last quarter of 2011 do show that people from lower income households are not being put off as much as people from wealthier backgrounds.

But Joey Jones said that while this is a "crumb of comfort," ministers will still be worried. "This is a policy area that the government - but particulalry the Liberal Democrats - have come in for an enourmous amount of flack about," he said.

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