High Level Summary of Statistics Trend Last update: Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Higher Education Students In Scotland
Since 2005-06 the number of students in Scottish higher education rose by 8,790 to their historically highest level of 293,970, 71% were of Scottish domiciles (207,585). There were also 14,115 students at the Open University in Scotland, giving a combined total of 308,085.
The number of students at HEIs rose by 10,290 since 2005-06 to 244,510, (up 30% since 1999-00). Students in higher education at colleges fell by 1,500 to 49,460.
Postgraduate student numbers rose by 10% (6,680) and represented almost a quarter of all students (24%), first degree students fell slightly by 490 to 133,635 - a decrease for the first time since 1999-00 - almost half (45%) of all students were studying at first degree level. Overall, other HE student numbers rose by 2,595 to 39,945 -due to increased uptake at HEIs (other HE students at colleges fell by 3% to 48,745).
Entrants increased by 3% between 2005-06 and 2006-07, 10% since 1999-00. Entrants to HE from deprived areas of Scotland were over-represented in colleges, by 2 percentage points, and under-represented at all types of HEIs - unchanged since 2005-06, this was most noticeable in specialised and ancient universities. 75% of all entrants were Scottish domiciles.
The most popular HE courses in Scotland were in business administration and subjects allied to medicine, accounting for a third of HE students combined (31%).
20% (58,095) of students at Scottish institutions were of overseas domiciles, up 6,995 since 2005-06, 72% of these were from outside of Europe.
Sources: Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) and Scottish Funding Council (SFC).
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