This Statistical Bulletin is the annual first release of HESA student data from alternative providers. In previous years, our statistical bulletins were known as statistical first releases. We have changed the name to align with terminology used by other official statistics producers.
Alternative providers (APs) are higher education providers who do not receive recurrent funding from the Funding Councils or other public bodies and who are not further education (FE) colleges. Eligible students can access loans and grants from the Student Loans Company (SLC) on specific courses, referred to as designated courses.
This release focuses on all those alternative providers who supplied data to the HESA alternative provider student record. In the main, this includes APs in England that have successfully completed the designation process (with the exception of The University of Buckingham which supplied data to the HESA student record) for the academic year 2017/18. It also includes, from 2016/17, student numbers from one AP in Scotland.
This bulletin also includes a section on HE totality. This contains summary information on HE students at FE colleges in the UK, alongside information on students from APs and publicly funded UK HE providers.
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