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Higher Education

Answer

The latest available information from Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) is shown in the table. Figures for years earlier than 2002 have not been given because in this year the National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification (NS-SEC) was first introduced. It replaced the Social Class (SC) classification, and the two classifications cannot be directly compared. Also in 2002, a new subject classification was introduced which is not comparable with the classification used in earlier years.

Number and proportion of English domiciled applicants to full-time science¹ undergraduate courses by National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification (NS-SEC) years of entry 2002 to 2007
	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007
NS-SEC group²	Number	% of known	Number	% of known	Number	% of known	Number	% of known	Number	% of known	Number	% of known
1	22,525	24.2	22,499	24.0	22,577	23.8	22,602	22.9	22,256	23.9	22,954	23.6
2	27,072	29.1	27,727	29.6	28,436	30.0	29,315	29.7	27,330	29.4	28,296	29.0
3	14,293	15.4	13,993	14.9	14,342	15.1	14,963	15.2	13,639	14.7	13,881	14.2
4	6,546	7.0	6,525	7.0	6,429	6.8	6,762	6.9	6,560	7.0	7,143	7.3
5	4,432	4.8	4,842	5.2	4,588	4.8	4,751	4.8	4,454	4.8	4,690	4.8
6	12,688	13.6	13,105	14.0	13,260	14.0	14,807	15.0	13,549	14.6	14,813	15.2
7	5,440	5.8	5,110	5.4	5,132	5.4	5,408	5.5	5,309	5.7	5,650	5.8
Total known	92,996	100.0	93,801	100.0	94,764	100.0	98,608	100.0	93,097	100.0	97,427	100.0
Unknown³	16,814	—	19,610	—	19,256	—	26,190	—	29,147	—	29,857	—
Total	109,810	—	113,411	—	114,060	—	124,798	—	122,244	—	127,284	—
Groups 1 to 3	63,890	68.7	64,219	68.5	65,355	69.0	66,880	67.8	63,225	67.9	65,131	66.9
Groups 4 to 7	29,106	31.3	29,582	31.5	29,409	31.0	31,728	32.2	29,872	32.1	32,296	33.1
¹ Science undergraduate courses cover the following subject groups: Medicine and Dentistry; subjects allied to Medicine; Biological sciences; Veterinary science, Agriculture and related subjects; Physical sciences; Mathematical and Computer Science; Engineering; Technologies; Architecture, Building and Planning; and Combined Sciences.
² Definitions of each of the NS-SEC groups are (1) Higher managerial and professional occupations; (2) Lower managerial and professional occupations; (3) Intermediate occupations; (4) Small employers and own account workers; (5) Lower supervisory and technical occupations;(6) Semi-routine occupations and (7) Routine occupations.
³ The proportion of applicants from unknown NS-SEC has increased from 15.3 per cent. in 2002 to 23.5 per cent. in 2007.
Source:
Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS).

Overall, for all students from England, the UCAS figures show that, compared to 2006, applicants to all full-time undergraduate courses who had been accepted for entry in 2007, rose by 6.1 per cent. to 307,000, the highest ever. This includes increases in accepted applicants to first degree courses in physics (up by 9.8 per cent.), chemistry (up by 8.8 per cent.) and maths (up by 9.3 per cent.).Latest figures for students applying for entry in 2008, show that, as at the middle of January, applicants to all full-time undergraduate courses from England are up by 7.1 per cent. compared to 2007.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

474 c1615-6W; 196661

Session

2007-08

Subjects

Higher education Science

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk