In 2023/24 there were estimated to be over *** million students enrolled in higher education courses in the United Kingdom, compared with 2.94 million in 2022/23, 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.

There were 133,265 students enrolled at the UK-based Open University for the 2023/24 academic year, compared with 140,215 in the 2022/23 academic year, which was by far the highest number of students enrolled during this provided time period and a reflection of the move towards distant learning after the COVID-19 pandemic.

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.

Students from the Chinese ethnic group had the highest entry rate into higher education in every year from 2006 to 2024.

In 2023/24, 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 ****** students studying there in this academic year.

In 2024, there were ******* applications for University made in the United Kingdom, of which ******* were accepted. Compared with 1994, when there were ******* applications, there has been a net increase of approximately ******* applications, with applications peaking in the 2022 reporting year.

The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2024 include 1,907 universities across 108 countries and regions. The table is based on a new methodology, which includes 18 carefully calibrated performance indicators that measure an institution’s performance across five areas: teaching, research environment, research quality, industry, and international outlook.

Explore the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2025 below. Trusted worldwide by students, teachers, governments and industry experts, the list ranks 2,092 institutions from 115 countries and territories.

As of September 2024, social media users in the United Kingdom with a secondary level education made up 21 percent of users in the country. Overall, 22 percent of social media users had achieved further education, and 29 percent were of bachelor's degree education or equivalent.

UK Student Loan Market size was valued at USD 3009.63 Billion in 2024 and is projected to reach USD 5394.76 Billion by 2032, growing at a CAGR of 7.56% from 2026 to 2032.Key Market DriversRising Higher Education Enrollment and Tuition Costs: The consistent growth in UK higher education participation rates combined with increasing tuition fees has significantly expanded the demand for student loans. This fundamental driver reflects both demographic trends and the continued perceived value of university education despite rising costs. UCAS data showed that 560,030 students were accepted into UK universities for the 2022/23 academic year, representing a 3.8% increase since 2019/20. The Student Loans Company reported that the average loan balance for borrowers who began repayment in 2022 was 45,060, a 17% increase from 2019 levels.International Student Growth and Specialized Financing: The UK has experienced substantial growth in international student numbers, creating expanded opportunities for private student lending as these students typically cannot access the same government-backed loans as domestic students. UCAS data showed international student acceptances increased by 12.3% between 2020 and 2023, with 70,055 non-UK students accepted in the 2022/23 academic year. Private student loan providers reported a 37% increase in lending to international students between 2020 and 2022, according to a Financial Conduct Authority market review.

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.

A level students in the Chinese ethnic group had an average point score of 39.83 in the 2022 to 2023 academic year – the highest score out of all ethnic groups.

This statistics release provides summary data on the number of students completing T Levels, as reported to the Department for Education through the manage T Level results service.

Data includes:

• provisional outcomes for the fourth cohort of T Level students, who started in September 2023
• revised outcomes for the third cohort of students, who started in September 2022

T Levels are an alternative to A levels, apprenticeships and other 16 to 19 courses. Equivalent in size to 3 A levels, a T Level focuses on vocational skills and can help students into skilled employment, apprenticeships, college or university.

Find out more about how T Levels developed.

Over the five years through 2025-26, revenue is expected to increase at a compound annual rate of 2.3% to £5 billion. The numerous benefits of online education and training (e.g. reduced learning and development costs, time savings and flexibility and promotion of continuous development) have spurred growth. Recognising its advantages, the government has implemented a series of measures to hasten the uptake of educational technology by investing in improving household internet connections across the UK. The rise in student numbers has supported demand for additional training courses for those looking to boost their grades. The COVID-19 pandemic hiked revenue during 2020-21, with the forced closure of schools and universities pushing many courses online. Many universities are now committed to ensuring lectures and course material are uploaded online, a legacy of the COVID-19 technological wave. Revenue is anticipated to grow by 2.6% over 2025-26, with growth picking up again after naturally slowing following the surge in demand during the pandemic and encouragement from many critics to return to face-to-face learning to improve the learning experience and re-connect classmates. Over the five years through 2030-31, revenue is forecast to climb at a compound annual rate of 4.6% to £6.2 billion. The COVID-19 pandemic has hastened the adoption of online education and training, as lockdown periods normalised the use of technology and individuals have become accustomed to a new learning method. Unemployment rates are low, but a high number of vacancies remain, despite falling from COVID-19 highs, that aren't being met with the right skills, which is encouraging online learning and training. The number of UK 16- to 18-year-olds participating in full-time education is high, with record university applications that will boost online learning too. The growing skills gap will sustain demand as online platforms look to adapt to the changing job market and provide employees with the skills needed to secure work. The rise of free educational content through social media platforms like YouTube and LinkedIn will constrain future growth. The average profit margin is expected to expand to 18.4% in 2030-31.

Background: Mental health problems are increasingly common among university students, with more than one-third of students reporting symptoms of depression, anxiety or stress at some point during their degree (Mofatteh, 2021). Common mental health problems significantly contribute to poor university attendance, reduced engagement with university courses, and lower grade attainment (Oldfield et al., 2018). Multiple intervention programmes have been developed to target mental health and well-being in university students, such as stress management and cognitive-behavioural-therapy programmes (Worsley et al., 2022). However, such traditional interventions require students to actively seek help, can be time-consuming, and do not always focus on prevention. An alternative approach, known as a public-health approach, may be more effective. This approach addresses mental and physical health on a broader, population level, aiming to prevent issues before they start (Campion, 2018). One such public health intervention is called Prevail (Gray et al., 2023). Prevail is a multi-faceted programme which aims to improve attitudes about mental health, increase help-seeking behaviours and reduce stigma related to mental health problems. The Prevail intervention has been successful in improving mental health knowledge, reducing mental health stigma and lowering sickness absence in the workplace (Gray et al., 2023). However, Prevail has not yet been tested within a student population. Therefore, we aim to test the efficacy of Prevail in improving the well-being and academic outcomes of first-year university students.

Methods: The feasibility study involves approximately 300 first-year psychology students enrolled in the BSc Psychology Course at Swansea University, who are 17 years and older, and who speak and understand English. The students will be randomly allocated to receive the Prevail Intervention or an Academic-Skills Control Intervention. Those students receiving the Prevail intervention will gain knowledge about good mental health practices and information about dealing with stress and distress during their time at university. Those students receiving the academic-skills control intervention will gain knowledge about the key skills required at university and information about what to do when experiencing an academic challenge.

Students will be randomly allocated to one arm of the study during the induction week of the university course, creating two approximately equal groups. Groups will then be provided with the respective intervention (Prevail vs. Academic Skills). The interventions have been carefully matched in terms of content and form of presentation (didactic, interactive, video presentation, etc).

The students will be asked to provide informed consent at the beginning of the programme and asked to complete a questionnaire before delivery of the interventions. The questionnaire includes measures of Demographics, Well-being, Mental Health Stigma, Self-Compassion, Intolerance of Uncertainty and Personality. Measures of Mental Health Stigma and Self-compassion will be repeated at the end of the interventions, alongside an evaluation of the intervention itself. The students will also be asked to complete follow-up questionnaires on Well-being, Mental Health Stigma, Self-Compassion and Intolerance of Uncertainty, at the end of semester 1 and the end of semester 2 of the first year of their degree program (with each semester being of 4-month duration), as well as at the start of year 2 and year 3 of the program. These questionnaires will be completed online, via a link sent to the students’ email addresses.

The students will also be asked to provide their student ID number, provided to them by the university for correspondence, for each questionnaire response. Using these student numbers, a member of the research team will access the student's academic record to collect data on students’ university attendance, online engagement with the course, academic grades, and drop-out. The time points of data collection are the same as for the follow-up questionnaire data. This data will be linked to student's questionnaire response data.

The feasibility study will be run from Swansea University, School of Psychology (UK), starting during induction week, 23/09/2024 and is expected to run until the end of the Psychology course in 3 years, so 27/09/2027. The study is being run by Lucy Owen, Kate Ellis-Davies, Nicola Gray and David Playfoot from Swansea University, in collaboration with Robert Snowden, from Cardiff University. The study has received ethical approval from the Swansea University Department of Psychology Ethics Committee, Ref: 1 2024 11263 10237 (Attachment A).

The main contact is Lucy Owen (2005633@Swansea.ac.uk) at Swansea University.

In 2024, there were approximately ******* applications received by the University admissions service in the United Kingdom. Of these applications, the vast majority came from within the UK, with ****** coming from the European Union, and ******* from outside the EU.

In the academic year of 2022/32, more than ******* Chinese students were studying in the United Kingdom. The number of Chinese students studying in British higher education institutions increased by more than ** percent in the last decade. An attractive destination for Chinese students In recent years, the United Kingdom has overtaken the United States as the top choice among the destination countries for Chinese prospective students. The more affordable tuition fees in the country compared to destinations such as the United States and Australia, the shorter duration of the postgraduate programs, and the reputation of British universities as seen in international rankings have all contributed to the high popularity of the United Kingdom among Chinese students and employers. The diversification of international study destinations At the same time, destinations for Chinese students have become more diverse. The high academic and research performance of the United States in many sectors continues to make it a desirable destination for affluent Chinese students. For students from middle-class or less well-off backgrounds, studying in places such as Japan, Germany, and France are more practical options as these countries offer more affordable programs.

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.

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.

During the 2023/2024 academic year, there were approximately *** million full-time and sandwich students in the United Kingdom (UK), with almost ******* occupying provider-maintained property and roughly ******* in private-sector halls. The largest share of students, ******** occupied other rented accommodation.