Record numbers of school-leavers are seeking places at UK universities for this autumn, but the overall number of applications has dipped slightly.
Admissions service Ucas said 320,420 UK 18-year-olds had applied for higher education courses by its main January deadline, up 5 per cent year on year.
However, overall undergraduate applications fell by 1 per cent, to 610,720, mainly driven by a 17 per cent drop in applications from mature students. This is compared with 2021 when, at the height of the pandemic, applications from would-be students aged 21 or over leapt 24 per cent.
The number of international applicants at the January deadline held steady compared with last year, at 111,410. This masked a continuing decline in applications from European Union students, following the post-Brexit removal of their access to domestic fee levels and student finance: this year just 20,820 have applied, down 19 per cent on last year and 51 per cent on the year before that.
However, these declines were offset by increases in applications from further afield. The number of applications from…
