‘Let’s wait and see’ response to drop in university applications

The government and universities are unfazed by evidence pointing to a sharp drop in the number of applications for university courses in the 2012-13 academic year.

Preliminary figures produced by the university admissions organisation UCAS show that by 21 November, there had been a total of 158,387 applicants for all UK university courses, a drop of nearly 13 per cent on the previous year. The number of UK-born applicants fell by 15.1 per cent, with an even sharper reduction in numbers from Scotland and Northern Ireland, at 17.1 and 16.9 per cent.