The NHS is preparing for further disruption to services as nurses walk out again in their bitter dispute over pay
(Picture: Jacob King / PA)The number of applicants to university or college courses this year has fallen, with applications to nursing down almost 20 per cent, Ucas figures have shown.
A total of 596,590 people had applied to undergraduate courses at UK institutions by the January deadline, down 2.3 per cent from last year, according to figures from the university admissions service.
The number of applicants to nursing courses has fallen by 18.6 per cent compared with January 2022, and applicants to education teaching courses are down 15.6 per cent.
Pat Cullen, general secretary and chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing, said: “These figures are damning for the Government. Not only are they losing record nurses from the NHS but they are... deterring the next generation.”
Ucas chief executive Clare Marchant said polling of students suggests that “cost-of-living factors” are making applicants re-evaluate their choice of subject based on “future career prospects”.
A total of 314,660 18-year-olds from across the UK had applied to courses, but Ucas said this year’s figure was the “second-highest on record” and it was higher than the pre-pandemic figure of 275,300 in January 2020.
The number of mature applicants from the UK has also fallen by 14 per cent compared with last year, which is mostly due to a decrease in nursing course demand, Ucas said.
During the pandemic, applications to study nursing surged.
But Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute think-tank, said recent strike action by nurses “highlighted the pressures endured by those in the profession”.
He added: “The decline in mature learners may also partly reflect the fact that the labour market is so tight at the moment, as there is less incentive to leave the labour market to study.
“Education also tends to be counter-cyclical in that people are less likely to enter teaching when other sectors have lots of vacancies. The shortage of people training to be teachers should be regarded as a national crisis.”
The data from Ucas shows that more people are applying to study computing (a rise of 9.6 per cent) and law (a rise of 2.1 per cent), while interest in apprenticeships has risen by 8.7 per cent compared with January last year.
Overall, the number of 18-year-old school and college leavers in the UK applying to undergraduate courses has fallen slightly this year – down 1.8 per cent on the same point last year.
