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LSE report predicts fall in student numbers from 2012

7 September 2011

A new report by academics at the London School of Economics' Centre for the Economics of Education today predicted a 7.51% reduction in university entrance rates for men and 4.92% fall for women, when higher tuition fees come in 2012.

UCU said the findings were further proof that the government's university funding plans had been a disaster from start to finish and warned that any decrease in student numbers would have a significant knock-on effect on English universities, already reeling from an 80% cut to their teaching budgets.

UCU general secretary, Sally Hunt, said: 'The government's higher education reforms have been a disaster from start to finish and this report should act as an urgent wake-up call to ministers. 

'Erecting punitive financial barriers is not the way to deliver a world-class higher education system and will deter the best and brightest from applying to university. Any drop in student numbers would also leave universities, already reeling from an 80 per cent teaching budgets, with a significant funding gap.'

From Grants to Loans and Fees: The Demand for Post-Compulsory Education in England and Wales from 1955 to 2008 by Peter Dalton and Li Lin, August 2011 cee.lse.ac.uk/ceedps/ceedp127.pdf

Last updated: 11 December 2015

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