Access
to HE courses are designed for people who would like to study at university but
who left school without the usual qualifications, such as A levels.
Introduction to Access
Access to Higher Education statistics 2001
Access statistics 2001:
HESA (PDF - 175k)
QAA (PDF 59k)
UCAS (PDF 243k)
The QAA is pleased to present national statistics about Access to Higher Education students, programmes and progresssion. The individual data sets presented here have been brought together by QAA from a number of sources, as a result of work pursued jointly between QAA and the Further Education Funding Council (FEFC); the Further Education Funding Council for Wales (FEFCW); the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA); and the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS). The QAA is grateful for the cooperation of these organisations in this project to develop the public information available about Access to HE and its contribution to widening participation.
Data presented by each of the above individual organisations about Access to HE students and/or programmes has been extracted for this particular purpose from statistics collected as a part of their normal data-gathering exercises and the data sets are therefore not necessarily directly comparable. The following differences in data collected make it difficult to make reliable comparisons, or to draw conclusions which assume that data can be tracked through from one source to another.
- Data from HESA: there is currently no distinction between QAA-recognised Access courses and other courses which may describe themselves as 'access' courses; information about former Access students who progress to HE courses in further education is not included;
- Data from UCAS: applicants to part-time HE courses are not included; Access students who make direct applications to HE institutions are not included.
- Data from QAA: statistics supplied to QAA by authorised validating agencies includes information about all recognised Access courses. Not all of these are funded by the FEFC/FEFCW and data relating to these courses will therefore not appear in the FEFC/FEFCW statistics.
- Not all statistics were collected at the same point or relate to
the same cohort of students. QAA statistics relate to students on Access
courses during the academic year 1999-2000; UCAS statistics relate
to the same group of students as they applied for admission to higher
education during the same year. HESA statistics also relate to 1999-2000
(ie the 1998-99 cohort of Access students).
HESA statistics
QAA statistics
UCAS statistics