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Foreword - Higher Education Statistics 2014/15

Statistical First Release

Foreword by the Chief Executive of HESA

The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) is pleased to present the annual official statistical overview of higher education in the United Kingdom (UK) for the year 2014/15. This is the latest edition in a series that was initiated in 1993. It is a National Statistics publication.

The publication aims to present a comprehensive set of statistical information about a range of aspects of the UK higher education sector. It is unique in providing the basic figures not only about the students of higher education providers, but also about applicants, staffing, finance, student support, and other aspects of higher education provision. The publication also includes summary statistics about study at higher education level in further education colleges, and it therefore presents figures illustrating the totality of higher education provision in publicly-funded providers in the UK. In addition, figures for The University of Buckingham, a non-publicly-funded HE provider voluntarily providing data to HESA, are included.

Sources of data

The information in this publication is derived from a wide range of sources as listed below. More detailed descriptions of these sources are given in the Definitions.

The majority of the data come from the various data streams collected annually by HESA:

  • Details of student enrolments (shown in Tables 1-9) are taken from the HESA Student Record which is an annual census of all students on higher education courses (postgraduate and undergraduate) in HE sector providers. Similar data for HE students enrolled at FE sector colleges (shown in Table 1) are taken from individual student data collected by the Skills Funding Agency (covering English FECs), the Scottish Funding Council, the Department for Education and Skills (Wales) and the Department for Employment and Learning Northern Ireland.

  • The Student Record also records the numbers of students who successfully complete their courses (shown in Table 10).

  • Tables 11a and 11b report on students studying wholly overseas, but registered with, or studying for an award from a UK HE provider. These are also collected on an annual basis.

  • Information on the destinations of newly qualified HE students (Tables 12a, 12b, 12c, 13) is taken from the Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education (DLHE) annual survey, which records the employment/study situation of graduates six months after graduation.

  • The annual HESA Staff Record provides details of academic and non-academic staff employed in UK Higher Education Providers (HEPs) (Tables 14 and 15).

  • The annual HESA Finance Record provides details of the income and expenditure of HEPs (Tables 16 and 17).

Other sources used are:

  • The Student Loans Company, who collect annual information on students taking out loans and the amounts borrowed (Tables 18a to 18i).

  • The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) which compiles annual data on international comparisons of HE participation and graduation rates (Table 19).

  • The Office for National Statistics compiles data for ‘the Labour Force Survey’ on a quarterly basis covering the whole of the UK (Tables 20a and 20b).

The publication draws, to a certain extent, on material which is further analysed or elaborated upon in other HESA publications, for a full list of HESA's publication please click here.

The Agency appreciates the collaboration of all the bodies that have made data available for the publication, and in particular that of our colleagues in the Department for Education (DfE), Welsh Government, Scottish Government and the Department for the Economy Northern Ireland with whom we have worked closely in preparing it, in accordance with the arrangements approved by the UK Statistics Authority.

  • Paul Clark
  • Chief Executive

© Higher Education Statistics Agency Limited 2016

National Statistic

Embargo

11 August 2016, 9:30

Coverage

UK

Themes

Education and training

Issued by

HESA, 95 Promenade, Cheltenham, GL50 1HZ

Press enquiries

01242 211120

Public enquiries

01242 211133

Statistician

Izzy Budd

Email

[email protected]


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