In 2022/23, the Open University, which focuses on remote learning, had approximately ******* students enrolled on courses, the highest in the UK during that academic year. After the Open University, University College London had the highest number of students in the UK, at ******, while the University of Manchester had the second-highest, at ******. The UK's oldest university, The University of Oxford, had approximately ****** students studying there.

In 2022/23 there were estimated to be over **** million students enrolled in higher education courses in the United Kingdom, which was the highest number of enrolled students during this provided time period. Although the number of students in the UK fell from *** million in 2011/12 to **** by 2014/15, this trend reversed in subsequent years, reaching the peak in the most recent year. Largest UK universities At ******* students, the mainly remote, Open University had the largest number of students enrolled among UK-based higher education institutions in 2022/23. University College London had the second-highest number of students at ******, followed by the University of Manchester at ******. At the UK's two oldest and most prestigious universities, Oxford and Cambridge, there were ******, and ****** students respectively. The university with the most students in Scotland was the University of Glasgow at *******students, with Wales' being Cardiff University at ****** students, and Northern Ireland's Ulster University having ****** students. Student Debt in the UK For students that graduated from English universities in 2024, the average student loan debt incurred over the course of their studies was over ****** British pounds. Although students graduated with less debt from universities in Wales, Northern Ireland, and especially Scotland, this too has been growing recently. In 2024, students from Scottish Universities graduated with an average of ****** pounds of debt, compared with ****** in Wales, and ****** in Northern Ireland. The overall outstanding student loan debt in the UK reached over *** billion pounds in 2023/24, with the vast majority of this debt from students who studied in England.

The University of Cambridge was listed as the best university in the United Kingdom in 2025 with an overall score of 1000, compared with the University of Oxford, which came in second-place with a score of 965.

Over the five years through 2024-25, the Universities industry's revenue is expected to grow at a compound annual rate of 2.1% to £56.5 billion. The increase in tuition fees to £9,250 in 2017-18 has been an important driver of revenue growth. However, with tuition fees frozen since then, inflation and particularly high inflation in the two years through 2023-24 has meant their real value has plummeted. The cap on undergraduate student numbers in the UK was lifted in 2020-21, leading to a rise in student enrolments, which has helped prop up universities’ income. Universities have struggled in the face of cuts to the level of research funding received from the government and disruption caused by the pandemic. Teaching went online in the final term of 2019-20 and remained there for most of the 2020-21 academic year due to restrictions imposed following the COVID-19 outbreak, pushing down revenue. However, despite fears of a fall in demand, student applications for 2020-21 rose and continued to climb in the following year. Universities are benefiting from the UK rejoining Horizon Europe, the EU’s flagship research programme – they’ve been able to access funding since January 2024. However, there are big concerns over ailing international student numbers since they currently prop up univeristy finances and help to subsidise domestic students' places. The introduction of the dependant ban in January 2024 on overseas students bringing family with them on their student visa for taught masters has seen applications from several countries fall. Revenue is still set to grow 1.9% in 2024-25 as funding levels rise and student numbers remain high. From April 2025, the DfE has confirmed tuition fees are due to increase in line with inflation to £9,535, which should lift revenue for universities. Over the five years through 2029-30, university revenue is forecast to climb at a compound annual rate of 1.2% to reach £60 billion. Strong demand from domestic students will further support revenue growth, with rising tuition fees boosting revenue post 2025. Commitment to the graduate visa route could be a positive signal for international student applicants, but the industry will need more funding intervention to prevent closures and budget cuts.

The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2023 include 1,799 universities across 104 countries and regions, making them the largest and most diverse university rankings to date. The table is based on 13 carefully calibrated performance indicators that measure an institution’s performance across four areas: teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook.

The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2021 include more than 1,500 universities across 93 countries and regions, making them the largest and most diverse university rankings to date. The table is based on 13 carefully calibrated performance indicators that measure an institution’s performance across four areas: teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook.

In the 2022/23 academic year, 30 percent of undergraduates obtaining their degree were awarded a degree with first-class honors, the highest possible grade for UK graduates. Almost half of all students achieved an upper second or 2.1, with 20 percent obtaining a lower second or 2.2, and just four percent of graduates obtained a third, the lowest possible pass grade. The share of UK students graduating with a first-class degree has increased significantly in this time period, while the share of students obtaining a 2.2 has fallen the most in the same time period. GCSE and A-Level grades also on the rise Higher grades for the UK's main qualification for high school students, the general certificate of secondary education (GCSE), have also increased recently. In 1988 for example, approximately 8.4 percent of GCSE entries received the highest grade, compared with 21.8 percent in 2024. This is also the case to a lesser-extent for advanced level GCSE results (A-Levels), with the share of entries being awarded an A or A* increasing from 17.8 percent in 2000 to 27.8 percent in 2024. There is no consensus on if these improvements are due to increased ability, or to grade inflation. During the COVID-19 pandemic, however, grades in the UK were a lot higher than in other years. This was due to teacher and tutor assessments being giving a higher weighting than normal, with exams being postponed or cancelled completely. The UK's top universities Britain's oldest and most famous universities, Cambridge and Oxford, remained the two highest-ranked universities in the UK in 2025, with the London School of Economics finishing third. According to the ranking, the University of St Andrews was the top university outside the south of England, with Durham University being the highest-ranked university in the north of England. The largest university in terms of enrolled students was the mainly remote focused Open University, which had over 140,000 students in 2022/23. Among universities that mainly taught on-campus, University College London had the most students enrolled, at almost 52,000.

The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2020 includes almost 1,400 universities across 92 countries, standing as the largest and most diverse university rankings ever to date. The table is based on 13 carefully calibrated performance indicators that measure an institution’s performance across teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook.

Out of the ten highest-ranked universities in the United Kingdom, The University of Edinburgh had the most residential buildings for the calendar year 2021/2022, with a total of *** at that time. The University of Bristol and the University of Manchester constituted the remainder of the top three, with *** and ** buildings, respectively.

India has the most universities worldwide. According to data from July 2023, there were an estimated ***** universities in India. Indonesia had the second most universities, counting *****, followed by the United States with ***** universities.

This is a nationally representative cross-sectional survey of Chinese international students in the UK, with a comparison group of UK home students. It is part of a wider study with other surveys in Germany and China. The study population are taught (undergraduate and postgraduate) Chinese students studying in UK universities. Areas covered in the questionnaires: Socio-demographic characteristics and course details; family background (parental education, occupation, household income, siblings); prior education (academic achievement and educational migration); motivations for study abroad and decision-making process; personality traits and values (e.g., risk-taking attitude); study experience in current course; health and wellbeing; future life course aspirations; cosmopolitan vs national orientations.Young people moving away from home to seek 'bright futures' through higher education are a major force in the urbanization of China and the internationalization of global higher education. Chinese students constitute the largest single group of international students in the richer OECD countries of the world, making up 20 percent of the total student migration to these countries. Yet systematic research on a representative sample of these student migrants is lacking, and theoretical frameworks for migration more generally may not always apply to students moving for higher education. Bright Futures is a pioneering study that investigates key dimensions of this educational mobility through large-scale, representative survey research in China, the UK and Germany. We explore this phenomenon in two related aspects: the migration of students from the People's Republic of China to the UK (this data collection) and Germany for higher education, and internal migration for studies within China. This research design enables an unusual set of comparisons, between those who stay and those who migrate, both within China and beyond its borders. We also compare Chinese students in the UK and Germany with domestic students in the two countries. Through such comparisons we are able to address a number of theoretical questions such as selectivity in educational migrations, aspirations beyond returns, the impact of transnationalization of higher education on individual orientations and life-course expectations, and the link between migration and the wellbeing of the highly educated. Bright Futures is a collaborative project, involving researchers from University of Essex, University of Edinburgh, UNED, University of Bielefeld and Tsinghua University. The research was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (UK), German Research Foundation (Germany) and the National Natural Science Foundation (China). The sample design is a two-stage stratified sample, with universities as the Primary Sampling Units (PSUs). The sample was stratified by university ranking and the size of Chinese students enrolled at the institution to ensure that students from different types of universities were proportionately represented. Within each university that agreed to participate we either sampled all Chinese students in undergraduate and taught postgraduate programmes, or (in universities with a very large population of Chinese students) took a random sample. In each university, we sampled the same number of British home students as Chinese students for comparison. The questionnaire for UK home students is designed to serve as a comparison group to Chinese students. All questionnaires were in the students’ main language, i.e. Chinese or English respectively. The survey was conducted online. The response rate at the student level was approximately 13 percent. Survey fieldwork took place between April 2017 and March 2018. The achieved sample size in the UK is 1,446 Chinese students and 1,678 home students.

This dataset contains the amount of money paid by UK higher education institutions to seven major publishers (Elsevier, Wiley, Springer, Taylor & Francis, Sage, Oxford University Press, and Cambridge University Press) for academic journals from 2010-14. The data was obtained by sending FOI requests to each institution through the website whatdotheyknow.com These are seven of the largest academic publishers but do not represent the total spend of these institutions on academic journals. Please see the F1000 data note (http://f1000research.com/articles/3-274/v1) for a full description of the data collection process. UPDATE 08/10/2014: Added figures for 13 more institutions. UPDATE 22/10/2014: Added figures for subscriptions to Elsevier journals. Also includes additional figures for other publishers for 16 institutions. UPDATE 24/10/2014: Added figures for subscriptions to Elsevier journals for 13 more institutions. UPDATE 27/10/2014: Added figures for subscriptions to Elsevier journals for 5 more institutions. UPDATE 29/10/2014: Added figures for subscriptions to Elsevier journals for 25 more institutions. UPDATE 5/11/2014: Added figures for subscriptions to Elsevier journals for 14 more institutions. UPDATE 25/11/2014: Added figures for Wiley, Springer, and OUP for 20 Russell Group institutions from Michelle Brook's FOI data (http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.1250073) as well as further figures for around 20 other institutions. UPDATE 03/12/2014: Added figures for subscriptions to various publishers for 13 institutions.

The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2022 include more than 1,600 universities across 99 countries and territories, making them the largest and most diverse university rankings to date. The table is based on 13 carefully calibrated performance indicators that measure an institution’s performance across four areas: teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook.

Full resource found at: https://sparcopen.org/our-work/big-deal-knowledge-base

Sourcing: Pricing Data: Individual entries are linked to third party resources within the database; non-linked entries come from Freedom of Information requests (courtesy of Ted Bergstrom and Paul Courant). FTE Data: UK Higher Education Statistics Agency for UK FTE (HE student enrollment FTE + HE staff); DOE IPEDS for US FTE (“Full-time equivalent fall enrollment” + “Total FTE staff”); Universities Canada and COPPUL for Canadian FTE (student data only). Institutional Categories: Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education.

UK Student Accommodation Market is segmented by accommodation type (Halls of residence, Rented houses or rooms, Private student accommodation), by location (City Center, Periphery), by rent type (basic rent, total rent), by mode (Online, Offline). The report offers market size and values in (USD million) during the forecasted years for the above segments.

This statistic shows the proportional changes to United Kingdom (UK) university application rates from 2017 to 2018, by subject group. The largest decrease was in applications for Non-European Languages, Literature and related subjects. On the other side, the strongest growth was found in Medicine and Dentistry.

This data collection relates to project 3.4 of the Centre for Global Higher Education: The transformative potential of MOOCs and contrasting online pedagogies. The response of higher education systems to the possibilities of digital technologies has been sporadic and localised. System-level initiatives relate more to administration and research than to education, while institution-level responses focus mainly on installing virtual learning environments. One area where digital innovation in HE has been rapid and large-scale is the phenomenon of the spread of massive, open, online courses (MOOCs). The top universities in the US, a few in the UK, the EU, the Far East, Australia, and now also in parts of the Global South, have experimented with this form of HE. The transformative potential of MOOCs, while widely forecast, is still uncertain, for several reasons: MOOCs have done little to transform undergraduate education, as some 80 per cent of participants are highly qualified professionals. MOOC affordances and the large-scale participation rates are incompatible with the personal nurturing and scaffolding that supports high quality student learning. Universities and platform developers are still developing the business models they need to make MOOCs sustainable, and financially viable. In order to explore what features of MOOCs have most potential to transform Higher Education, in depth interviews with MOOC participants were conducted online.The last two generations have seen a remarkable world-wide transformation of higher education (HE) into a core social sector with continually expanding local and global reach. Most nations are moving towards, or have already become, 'high participation' HE systems in which the majority of people will be educated to tertiary level. In the UK HE is at the same time a pillar of science and the innovation system, a primary driver of productivity at work, a major employer and a mainstay of cities and regions, and a national export industry where 300,000 non-EU students generated over £7 billion in export-related earnings for the UK in 2012-13. In 2012, 60 per cent of UK school leavers were expected to graduate from tertiary education over the lifetime, 45 per cent at bachelor degree level, compared to OECD means of 53/39 per cent. Higher education and the scientific research associated with universities have never been more important to UK society and government. HE is large and inclusive with a key role in mediating the future. Yet it is poorly understood. Practice has moved ahead of social science. There has been no integrated research centre dedicated to this important part of the UK. The Centre for Engaged Global Higher Education (CEGHE), which has been funded initially for five years by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), now fills that gap. On behalf of the ESRC CEGHE conducts and disseminates research on all aspects of higher education (HE), in order to enhance student learning and the contributions of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to their communities; develop the economic, social and global engagement of and impacts of UK HE; and provide data resources and advice for government and stakeholder organisations in HE in the four nations of the UK and worldwide. CEGHE is organised in three closely integrated research programmes that are focused respectively on global, national-system and local aspects of HE. CEGHE's team of researchers work on problems and issues with broad application to the improvement of HE; develop new theories about and ways of researching HE and its social and economic contributions; and respond also to new issues as they arise, within the framework of its research programmes. An important part of CEGHE's work is the preparation and provision of data, briefings and advice to national and international policy makers, for HEIs themselves, and for UK organisations committed to fostering HE and its engagement with UK communities and stakeholders. CEGHE's seminars and conferences are open to the public and it is dedicated to disseminating its research findings on a broad basis through published papers, media articles and its website and social media platform. CEGHE is led by Professor Simon Marginson, one of the world's leading researchers on higher education matters with a special expertise in global and international aspects of the sector. It works with partner research universities in Sheffield, Lancaster, Ireland, Australia, South Africa, Netherlands, China, Hong Kong SAR, Japan and USA. Among the issues currently the subject of CEGHE research projects are inquiries into ways and means of measuring and enhancing HE's contribution to the public good, university-industry collaboration in research, the design of an optimal system of tuition loans, a survey of the effects of tuition debt on the life choices of graduates such as investment in housing and family formation, the effects of widening participation on social opportunities in HE especially for under-represented social groups, trends and developments in HE in Europe and East Asia and the implications for UK HE, the emergence of new HE providers in the private and FE sectors, the future academic workforce in the UK and the skills that will be needed, student learning and knowledge in science and engineering, and developments in online HE

In the academic year 2023/24, there were 331,602 international students from India studying in the United States. International students The majority of international students studying in the United States are originally from India and China, totaling 331,602 students and 277,398 students respectively in the 2023/24 school year. In 2022/23, there were 467,027 international graduate students , which accounted for over one third of the international students in the country. Typically, engineering and math & computer science programs were among the most common fields of study for these students. The United States is home to many world-renowned schools, most notably, the Ivy League Colleges which provide education that is sought after by both foreign and local students. International students and college Foreign students in the United States pay some of the highest fees in the United States, with an average of 24,914 U.S. dollars. American students attending a college in New England paid an average of 14,900 U.S. dollars for tuition alone and there were about 79,751 international students in Massachusetts . Among high-income families, U.S. students paid an average of 34,700 U.S. dollars for college, whereas the average for all U.S. families reached only 28,026 U.S. dollars. Typically, 40 percent of families paid for college tuition through parent income and savings, while 29 percent relied on grants and scholarships.

Data on the top universities for Computer Science in 2025.

In Autumn 2024, among the students enrolled in the highest ranked university in the world, Oxford in the United Kingdom, 51 percent were female. See here for an overview of the highest-ranked universities in the world.