News and insight

The higher education sector had a total income of £16.9 billion in the 2003/04 academic year. This compares to £15.7 billion in 2002/03. In contrast higher education institutions reported an expenditure of £16.6 billion in 2003/04 and £15.5 billion 2002/03. The surplus of income over expenditure increased from £218 million in 2002/03 to £241 million in 2003/04.

An increase in part-time first years of 4.2 per cent was recorded in 2003/04 to 406,550 from 390,095 in 2002/03. The statistics are released today by the Higher Education Statistics Agency from the 2003/04 Student Record. Overall, this rise contributed to a 2.6 per cent growth of the part-time student body of all years of study to 812,475 in 2003/04 from 791,625 in 2002/03. Part-time students consist 41.7 per cent of all higher education students.

The most popular subject group among first degree students in 2003/04 was business and administrative studies with 12.5 per cent of students choosing programmes of study within this group. Biological sciences and social studies were the second most popular subject groups each with 9.2 per cent.

From the 2003/04 academic year the Higher Education Statistics Agency has introduced a new record of staff data that combines and replaces the several staff data streams that were collected previously.

The number of first year HE students at publicly-funded higher education institutions in the UK passed the million mark for the first time in the 2003/04 academic year. There were 1,012,215 first years in 2003/04 compared to 977,010 in 2002/03. This is a rise of 3.6 per cent. In 2003/04 the entire HE student body numbered 2,247,440 compared to 2,175,115 in 2002/03.

This Statistical First Release (SFR) has been produced by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) in collaboration with Department for Education and Skills (DfES) statisticians. It provides provisional details of qualifications obtained by and examination results of higher education (HE) students at HE institutions (HEIs) in the United Kingdom (UK) for the academic year 2003/04.

Further to the Performance Indicators released earlier this year (Thursday 30 September 2004) HESA is now able to release the Employment Indicator Table E1. This table has been released later than the other Performance Indicators as the data on which it is based becomes available later in the annual cycle. This indicator looks at the employment outcomes of UK domiciled graduates from full-time first degree courses six months after completing their programme.

Of the 248,005 full-time leavers who completed HESA’s Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education (DLHE) survey, 72.7 per cent had found employment. The number of leavers who were both working and continuing to study was 60,060 or 24.2 per cent (this figure is included within employment). 15,295 (6.2 per cent) were assumed to be unemployed.

This Statistical First Release (SFR) has been produced by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), in collaboration with Department for Education and Skills (DfES) statisticians. It provides details of the destinations of leavers from higher education (HE) who obtained qualifications in higher education institutions (HEIs) in the United Kingdom (UK), during the academic year 2002/03.

The projected non-completion rate for full-time first degree students at UK universities and higher education colleges has been calculated at 14.1% this year. The data comes from the latest set of performance indicators covering the 2002/03 academic year. This is the first year HESA has published the performance indicators. In previous years, the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) published them on behalf of the four UK funding bodies. Design of the indicators continues to be managed through the Performance Indicators Steering Group, with broad official and sector representation.