Higher Education Student Statistics 2019/20 released
The first release of HESA student data for the 2019/20 academic year shows an increase in overall student numbers with most of the growth due to non-UK domiciled entrants.
View Higher Education Student Statistics: UK 2019/20
The data released today relates to students enrolled between 1 August 2019 and 31 July 2020 including the first five months of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The 2019/20 release includes data from English HE providers registered as either Approved (fee cap) or Approved with the Office for Students.
Headline statistics from today’s Statistical Bulletin include:
- The total number of HE students stood at 2,532,385 in 2019/20, an increase of 3% from 2018/19.
- The number of first year students from EU countries fell by 2% while the number from non-EU countries rose by 23%.
- The total number of students from India more than doubled from 27,505 in 2018/19 to 55,465 in 2019/20.
- There was a 37,605 or 15% increase in first year masters taught course enrolments from 2018/19 to 2019/20 mostly due to an increase in non-EU students.
- The number of students on first degree courses (e.g. BA/BSc) increased by 3%, but the number on other undergraduate courses fell by 6%.
- A total of 800,335 HE qualifications were awarded in 2019/20, of which 53% were first degrees.
- 35% of classified first degrees were awarded first class honours compared to 28% in 2018/19. This rise coincides with a ‘no detriment’ approach to assessment adopted by many providers in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.1
For more detail on all of these headlines, please see today’s Statistical Bulletin Higher Education Student Statistics: UK, 2019/20. The bulletin is a National Statistics release published as open data which includes interactive tables and charts divided across four topics plus a summary and notes.
A further open data publication Higher Education Student Data will be released on 9 February. This will include more detailed breakdowns from the 2019/20 HESA Student, Student Alternative and Aggregate Offshore records.
If you have comments or suggestions about today’s release please give feedback via the form in the bulletin.
Notes
- In relation to classifications of first degrees and other awards, many providers issued public statements that a 'no detriment' approach would be adopted when it came to assessment. This typically ensured that students would be awarded a final grade no lower than the most recent provider assessment of their attainment.
- Percentages exclude unknown values.
- See Definitions: Students for definitions of terms used in the release and explanation of the coverage of statistics.
- See Upcoming data releases for a schedule of Official Statistics releases from HESA, including Statistical Bulletins, Performance Indicators and full open data releases.
- HESA cannot accept responsibility for any inferences or conclusions derived from the data by third parties.