MORE STUDENTS TO BE DENIED UNIVERSITY PLACES

03 Feb 2011

The number of qualified students failing to win a place at university could rise to 100,000 a year by the end of the decade, according to the higher education think-tank HEPI.

In its report "Higher Education Supply and Demand to 2020", it says the number of unsuccessful applicants could rise to 1 in 5 of all those seeking places.

It notes that the "Robbins principle" - that all who are qualified should be able to enter university - has now broken down and we are now seeing a "large scale retreat" from the idea which has been behind university expansion since the 1960s.

Analysing figures for recent years, the report says that over the past two years the number of applicants has been rising faster than the number of acceptances.

The proportion of applicants failing to receive offers has risen from 6% in 2003 to 10% in 2009 and then to almost 14% in 2010.

In 2010 more than 135,000 applicants failed to enter university, although not all of these failed to receive an offer and not all were "qualified" to enter. The figure also included students from overseas.

HEPI estimates that some 62,000 "qualified" students failed to gain a place in 2010

Looking to the future, HEPI estimates that - despite an expected fall in the number of 18 year-olds - there will continue to be rising demand for places, as more young people stay-on in education and more achieve the necessary qualifications.

However, it also notes a recent rise in the numbers of applicants without any qualifications recognised by the UCAS tariff system. Indeed, nearly half the increase between 2008-2010 was accounted for by people with no tariff points at all. Some of these will have overseas qualifications and others will have Level 3 qualifications which are not recognised by the tariff - but others will be older applicants wishing to make up for earlier educational failure.

The full report is at: www.hepi.ac.uk/455-1907/Higher-Education-Supply-and-Demand-to-2020.html