Student Loans 2012

setmefree2

White Paper: Elite to take up AAB gauntlet

A number of leading universities intend to take up the government's challenge to increase their intake of high-achieving students, raising the prospect of ex-pansionist competition under higher education's new market system.Times Higher Education contacted vice-chancellors in the Russell and 1994 groups of research-intensive universities to ask them how they planned to respond to government proposals to allow unlimited recruitment of students with the best A-level grades.
Of the 12 who responded, six said they planned to expand their recruitment of students with AAB grades or better, with one aiming to boost total undergraduate numbers by as much as 10 per cent via such recruitment in 2012-13.

As an estimated 65,000 such places become contestable, some universities will lose AAB students and will be forced to drop their average fees below £7,500 if they want to claw back their numbers. THE understands that an elite group of just 10 institutions have 40 per cent of all AAB students.
On the AAB plans, most vice-chancellors planning to expand student numbers in 2012-13 said they were considering "modest" rises, but others were more expansionist. One told THE that he was aiming for an increase in the total undergraduate intake of "about 5 per cent"; another planned "at least 6 per cent" more; and a third envisaged a rise of "5 to 10 per cent in the first year as a proportion of total intake".
However, the universities of Oxford and Cambridge said they had no plans to increase undergraduate numbers. An Oxford spokeswoman said: "Our collegiate and tutorial systems put a natural ceiling on the numbers we can admit."

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=416731&c=1

setmefree2

The government's new higher education policies could cut student places in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects and create extra places in cheaper arts and humanities disciplines, vice-chancellors have warned.A number of senior sector figures are concerned that the core-margin system, unveiled in the government's higher education White Paper, will deduct places from high-cost STEM subjects and allocate them to cheaper institutions more likely to offer lower-cost arts and humanities places.
Critics also argue that the proportion of AAB students is higher in arts and humanities subjects, creating a further incentive to weight provision towards those disciplines under the new market for elite students.

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=416732&c=1

setmefree2

Not really related to loans but I came across this:-

Just five schools in England sent more pupils to Oxford and Cambridge over three years than nearly 2,000 others combined, researchers have found.

BBC analysis of the data showed that private schools often get more pupils into selective universities than state ones with similar A-level results do.

"In our research, not all of that gap disappears even when you account for subject and choice at A-level."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-14069516

Also here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/jul/08/university-admissions-study-oxbridge-divide

melancholly

the data shows how much of the state school contribution comes from grammar schools too. (table 13 is quite scary when you see the differences between local authorities in getting into highly selective universities - although i'm sure some people would argue that their list of unis has some noticable absentees) no sign of my old school in there at all though!!

http://www.suttontrust.com/public/documents/sutton-trust-he-destination-report-final.pdf
(i haven't read the report, just scrolled through the tables at the end - but it's interesting!)

Oldernotwiser

melancholly wrote: »

no sign of my old school in there at all though!!

Mine is!...

setmefree2

Oxford targets students from state schools

The university is aiming to recruit one in four of its successful UK applicants from a list of 2,276 schools and colleges

However, Bristol said it wanted to achieve its aims by expanding the number of students it takes in to avoid reducing the number of recruits from more affluent suburbs.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/oxford-targets-students-from-state-schools-2312655.html

melancholly

odd article actually - they want to recruit a quarter of students from this list of state schools. that should be 1000ish students starting each year. the article states that 'up to 30' students over 3 years got the required entry grades...... while i think it's vital to improve access, i'm not so sure about stacking the odds so far against other students....... i'm sure there's a happy medium but i'm a little uncomfortable with quotas like that.

setmefree2

Elite institutions that will compete for most AAB students revealed


Seventeen English universities face having to win back at least 1,000 full-time undergraduate places as a result of the government’s proposals to create competition for top-achieving students in 2012-13.

Figures released by the Higher Education Funding Council for England today show for the first time the potential impact of the policy to remove students with A level grades – or their equivalent – of AAB and above from the controls on places.



Under the plans announced in the recent White Paper, universities would initially lose such places, but would then be able to recruit as many students from this group as they wanted to, provided they could attract them. However, they would not be able to make up any shortfall by recruiting students with lower grades.
The Hefce data – which are based on student records for the 2009-10 academic year – show that at least eight institutions face having to compete for more than 80 per cent of their UK first-year intake.
These include the universities of Bristol, Cambridge, Durham, Oxford and Warwick, plus Imperial College London, University College London and the London School of Economics.
At least nine universities had more than 2,000 AAB students from the UK and European Union in 2009-10, according to the figures.
These include the universities of Manchester, Durham, Oxford, Cambridge, Nottingham, Leeds, Exeter, Bristol and Warwick.
However, the modelling also shows that many more institutions from across the sector will still face losing a large number AAB places and having to compete to win them back.
Examples include the University of the Arts London, which had 430 AAB students from the UK and EU in 2009-10, Nottingham Trent University (357), Brunel University (325) and the University of Plymouth (278).
In total almost 80 institutions had more than 100 students from the UK and EU with grades of AAB and above, or their equivalents.
Hefce stresses that the figures are indicative because the final decision for 2012-13 will be based on data from this year, and the 2009-10 statistics show there are large number of students whose grades and qualifications were unknown.
The 2009-10 figures indicate that around 56,000 students gained A level grades of AAB or higher, but the government is forecasting that this will rise to about 65,000 in 2012-13.

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=416837&c=1

Same info from the Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/8635891/Top-students-concentrated-in-just-12-elite-universities.html

setmefree2

'Surprising' Hefce data may leave some research intensives' 'cores' exposed. Simon Baker reports

One vice-chancellor, who did not want to be named, said the proportions - which relate to data on student numbers collected in 2009-10 - would "blow apart" conceptions of the markets different universities operate in.
He added that they could also have serious consequences owing to the government's White Paper proposals to allow competition for 65,000 AAB students and its intention to put a further 20,000 places up for grabs for institutions charging the lowest tuition fees.

Universities with a lower proportion of AAB students will have a larger "core" left exposed to this process.
If this year's figures match those recorded for 2009-10, Liverpool would lose more than 150 student places to create the margin, whereas the University of Bristol - where 85 per cent of students with known grades had AAB or better - would have its core cut by just over 30.
To make up these numbers, universities would either have to recruit more AAB students or charge fees of less than £7,500 to bid for the marginal places - an unlikely move for 1994 and Russell Group institutions.

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=416872&c=1

setmefree2

Full AAB data by university is available at the Link at the bottom of the TimesHE article. It's the 2nd spreadsheet when you open it. The salient data is in column P.


I'm amazed! Not much difference between Liverpool Uni and City Uni - who knew?

(Infact, when you look at the number of EU students with with high qualifications then City Uni looks much better.)