Today UCAS has published new figures for the 2018 admissions cycle, showing applications to university by its January deadline.
The statistics show an increase in the proportion of 18 years olds applying to higher education - but that’s not the only revelation.
Here are four other things we learned from the data.
- 36,000 missing men - In England, there was the highest ever demand for university among both male and female 18-year-olds. However, there is still a large - and growing - gap in application rates between the sexes. In England, 44.3 per cent of female 18-year-olds applied to university, whereas for men the figure was 31.8 per cent. UCAS said that if demand was equal between the sexes 36,000 additional men would have applied to university.
- And the gap between the sexes was bigger in the most disadvantaged areas - Across England, 18-year-old female students were 36 per cent more likely than men to apply to university. But the gap was even larger in the most disadvantaged areas, where women were 63 per cent more likely to apply.
- Gap in application rate between advantaged and disadvantaged areas has slightly narrowed - In the most advantaged areas of the UK, 52.3 per cent of 18-year-olds applied to university (an increase of 0.3 per cent on last year), whereas in the most disadvantaged areas 22.3 per cent applied (an increase of 0.8 per cent). While the gap has narrowed, it remains sizeable. Students from the most advantaged areas are 2.3 times as likely to apply to university as their peers from the most disadvantaged areas.
- London leads the country - but application rate falls in some other regions - Demand increased to a record high in most English regions, with London leading the country. 47.5 per cent of 18 year of students applied to university in the capital, an increase from last year. However, in some regions, the application rate fell for the first time since 2012. In the North East, it fell by 4.6 per cent to 31.7 per cent, in Yorkshire and Humber by 1.9 per cent to 34.2 per cent, and in the East of England by 0.4 per cent to 36.4 per cent.
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