III.

Higher Education Today

In 2001 there were almost 2.2 million full- and part-time students in higher education in the United Kingdom: 42 per cent of 18-year-olds now go on to study at a university or college of higher education. Much of this growth has been recent. At the beginning of the 1990s the age participation index was 17 per cent. Participation has therefore doubled in ten years. A further increase in participation is planned, to 50 per cent of 18- to 30-year-olds by 2010, and between 2002 and 2004, the acceptance rate of admissions to universities had already increased by more than 14 per cent. Although more students are still enrolled in higher education in some other European countries, drop-out rates remain lower in Britain. Four out of five students successfully complete their courses. As a result, Britain is now the largest producer of graduates in Europe. The growth in student enrolments since the mid-1980s has been a global phenomenon, linked by some commentators, in the short term, with economic recession and, in the medium and long term, with far-reaching changes in the labour market. Within the European Union as of April 2004 there were 12 million students and in the United States more than 15 million.

The number of universities in Britain nearly doubled following the abandonment of the binary division between traditional universities and other higher education institutions in 1992. In that year the existing 48 universities were joined by the 33 former polytechnics in England and Wales, 3 ex-Scottish central institutions, and 2 former colleges of higher education. One more university, the first in Britain to be based on a church-affiliated institution, has been established since 1992. More than 40 smaller colleges of higher education, and a small number of art, music, and other specialist colleges remain outside the university sector, although there are plans to relax the rules for achieving university status, opening the door to the creation of smaller and/or teaching-only universities. Many further education colleges, engaged predominantly in offering lower-level courses, also provide higher education. Higher education systems in most other developed countries are similarly diverse. In April 2004, it was estimated that in the 15 member states of the EU there were approximately 3,750 higher education institutions, including almost 700 universities. A slightly smaller number is to be found in the United States, although only 150 are classified as full research universities.