There were 996,000 first year students in the UK in 2013/14 according to this year’s Higher Education Statistics for the United Kingdom from HESA. 24% of these students were from outside the UK.
There were 2.3 million total students at UK higher education providers (HEPs) in 2013/14, over half (58%) of these students were following a full-time first degree program. This number has decreased since 2010/11 when there were 2.5 million students at UK HEPs. Since 2009/10 there has been a 7.8% drop in students.
The change in student numbers reflects a decline in part-time study, since 2009/10 there has been a drop of 30% in the number of part time students at UK HEPs, from 861,260 to 603,325.
Of the 2.3 million students at UK HEPs in 2013/14, 56% were female. Among part-time students the difference was more notable with 60.4% of students female.
Higher education providers had a total income of £30.7bn in 2013/14, 44% of which came from tuition fees. The rest of the income was made up from funding bodies (20%), research (17%), and other sources (19%). In 2013/14 the Student Loans Company lent £6.2 billion in tuition fee loans.
395,780 staff were employed at higher education providers, 49% of which were academic staff. 45% of academic staff were female and 36% were employed on fixed-term contracts.
A total of 777,555 degrees were awarded in 2013/14, made up of 422,000 first degrees (54%), 258,000 postgraduate (33%) degrees and 98,000 other undergraduate degrees. Of the leavers, 90% were in employment or further study 6 months after graduation.
The full HESA statistical publication is available here, or read the introduction for free.
