UCAS - Decade ends with record student numbers

Decade ends with record student numbers

Release date: Thursday 21 January 2010

The final figures for student numbers accepted into university or college last year (2009 entry) have now been released by UCAS.

In 1999 there were 334,594 accepted applicants. Ten years later in 2009 there were 481,854 - an increase of 44% (see table 5). This represents an increase of 25,227 (5.5%) on entry for 2008. There was an overall increase in the number of applicants of 8.7%. Applicants aged 20 and under showed a 6.9% increase.

Mary Curnock Cook, UCAS Chief Executive said: '2009 saw an unprecedented demand for places at university or college, but significantly more students have been accepted into higher education than ever before. Whilst there have been increases across the board, our figures show that there has been a particularly large increase in applicants aged 25 years and over - 89,133 in 2009, compared to 77,286 in 2008 - a 15.3% increase (see Table 3). Males aged 25 and over have seen the biggest rise in acceptances - up 10.8% to 20,963.'

Mary continues 'last year's cycle was record breaking for UCAS in terms of acceptances and applications. There are many factors that drive people to consider higher education, including the current economic situation, with more people looking to long term retraining in the traditionally more secure or transferable careers, such as nursing (+19.9%) and combinations within business and administrative studies (+11.4%).

In 2009 we processed 2,387,415 applications from 639,860 applicants. On 20 August we had almost a million logins to Track* and 14,098 enquiries to our call centre, providing thousands of applicants with the information they needed to help secure the course they wanted. We are expecting even more for 2010 entry.'

The number of applications processed by UCAS highlights the efficiency of an electronic application system. 81% of decisions were made on conditional offers by institutions by 21 August 2009 (one day after A level results day).

For applicants looking to apply for 2010 entry, the deadline for applications has been extended to 22 January due to the adverse weather earlier in the month. Applications received at UCAS after the deadline, up until 30 June 2010, will only be considered by the universities and colleges if they still have vacancies for the course that has been selected. For more information, visit www.ucas.com or call UCAS' advisers on 0871 468 0 468.

*Track is an online system that allows an applicant to follow the progress of their application.

The below tables represent a highlight of the end of year data. Click here to view the complete tables

1 - Applicants and acceptances by gender (all domiciles)

Year	Applicants			Accepted applicants
Year	Male	Female	Total	Male	Female	Total
2009	284,757	355,103	639,860	218,185	263,669	481,854
2008	259,878	328,811	588,689	204,695	251,932	456,627
% change	9.6%	8.0%	8.7%	6.6%	4.7%	5.5%

2 - Applicants by age (all domiciles) (2008 vs 2009 entry)

3 - Applicants and acceptances by age (all domiciles)

Year	Applicants				Accepted applicants
Year	20 and under	21 to 24	25 and over	Total	20 and under	21 to 24	25 and over	Total
2009	462,376	88,351	89,133	639,860	366,486	59,468	55,900	481,854
2008	432,600	78,803	77,286	588,689	350,263	54,921	51,443	456,627
% change	6.9%	12.1%	15.3%	8.7%	4.6%	8.3%	8.7%	5.5%

4 - Acceptances by country of domicile

5 - A decade of applicants and acceptances

In 1999 there were 334,594 accepted applicants. Ten years later in 2009 there were 481,854 - an increase of 44%.

6 - Acceptances by institution region

Proportionally Welsh institutions gained accepted applicants with a decrease to English Institutions (Welsh institutions 5.5% of total acceptances - up from 5.2%, English institutions 83.5% - down from 83.8%).

7 - Acceptances by overseas country

8 - Top ten JACS2* subject groups (accepted applicants) for 2009 by gender

Male

Female

* Joint Academic Coding System. The JACS system is used by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), and is the result of a joint UCAS-HESA subject code harmonisation project.

*Subjects allied to Medicine include:M

anatomy, physiology and pathology
pharmacology, toxicology and pharmacy
complimentary medicine
nutrition
ophthalmics
aural and oral sciences
nursing
medical technology
others in subjects allied to medicine
combinations within subjects allied to medicine.

9 - POLAR results

POLAR2 quintile	Year	Total
Quintile 1	2009	29,357
	2008	27,078
	% Change	8.4%
Quintile 2	2009	43,478
	2008	41,061
	% Change	5.9%
Quintile 3	2009	55,149
	2008	51,598
	% Change	6.9%
Quintile 4	2009	69,092
	2008	66,465
	% Change	4.0%
Quintile 5	2009	91,774
	2008	88,637
	% Change	3.5%
Unknown quintile	2009	3,560
	2008	5,998
	% Change	-40.6%
Total	2009	292,410
	2008	280,837
	% Change	4.1%

2009 accepted applicants aged 19 and under by known POLAR2 QYPR quintiles

2008 accepted applicants aged 19 and under by known POLAR2 QYPR quintiles

The POLAR2 (Participation of Local AReas 2) classification groups small areas across the UK into five quintile groups according to their rate of young participation in higher education in the early 2000s. In quintile 1 less than 1 in 5 young people enter higher education compared to well over half in quintile 5. Each quintile represents around 20 percent of the young population. Further information on the POLAR2 classification can be found on the HEFCE website (www.hefce.ac.uk/widen/polar/polar2/).

The POLAR2 Young Participation Rate classification has been applied (by using the recorded home postcode of the applicant) to UK domiciled accepted applicant data for those aged 19 and under and shows within the different quintiles who has been accepted into a higher education institution.

The largest proportional increase is for those applicants domiciled in POLAR2 Quintile 1 areas, that is, those areas that have the lowest levels of young participation in higher education. Smaller increases are seen for the more advantaged POLAR2 quintiles. Changes in the number of accepted applicants from each group can potentially be caused by several factors, including changes in the size of the population, changes in how young people enter higher education, or a change in the higher education participation rate. It is not possible to distinguish between these factors using the accepted applicant data alone. HEFCE's forthcoming report (Trends in young participation in higher education: core results for England, HEFCE 2010/03) uses these accepted applicant data with other data sources to provide an assessment of how the participation rate of young people living in the different POLAR2 areas has changed.

Ends

UCAS is a charity and is the world's leading shared admissions service for higher education. We manage applications for full time undergraduate courses, together with applications through GTTR (Graduate Teacher Training Registry), CUKAS (Conservatoires UK Admissions Service) and UKPASS (UK Postgraduate Application and Statistical Service).

Since its inception in 1993, UCAS has processed around 30 million applications and placed over 5 million students on higher education courses.

Services include:

An informative website (www.ucas.com) enabling students and parents to access a wealth of information designed to help their application to higher education run smoothly.
A state-of-the-art contact centre (0871 468 0468) providing a point of contact for students, schools and higher education institutions.
An online application system. A simple, straightforward tracking service enabling students and schools advisors to access up-to-date information about their applications at the click of a button.
Over 50 higher education events each year providing 250,000 students with face-to-face advice on the UCAS process. Internationally, we participated in events in over 12 countries and also provided training and professional development throughout Europe and beyond.

Media contacts

Darren Barker, Corporate Communications Executive
Charlotte Knowles, Corporate Communications Manager
Telephone: 01242 545723 or 01242 544987
Email: communications@ucas.ac.uk
Out of hours: 07768 740461

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