Applications from UK students as a whole were down by 8.9%, although the figure for England was -10% (compared to just -2.2% for Scotland, -2.7% for Wales and -4.4% for Northern Ireland), reinforcing the impact of swingeing tuition fee hikes on the level of interest in a university education.
Demand for arts and social science courses has been particularly badly hit, reflecting the fact that students appear to be shunning courses that lead to poorly-paid employment (or, of course, no employment).
Demand for UK university places from other EU countries is also significantly down, though these falls have been offset to some extent by increases in applications from other parts of the world such as the Middle East, South-East Asia, Australasia and the Americas.
