University applications down. A bit.

Almost tangible disappointment from the press today as the UCAS admissions figures failed to produce any desperately scandalous figures.

An idea of what the papers seemed to be hoping for is given by the Guardian, here, but in the end, we got a small fall in applicant numbers, of about 3.4% (down 12,941 on last year), which is not dissimilar to the figures the year the last round of student fee changes came in. Of course, the year after the numbers rose again, and the really interesting figures will be this time next year.

There's not a great deal of pattern to the changes - there are falls in the number of applications for the overwhelmingly popular law and psychology courses - but for every chamistry application, we still have 4 psychology application, so I don't see those two falling down an abyss any time soon (80,929 applications to law, the most popular course, 74,151 for psychology, 18,760 for chemistry). Equally, the changes are spread over region and socio-economic class (although applications from Wales are up).

The NUS is right to an extent to say that the fall in numbers is down to tuition fees, but as is typical, overexaggerate for effect. The Minister, Bill Rammell is bullish, but knows that the figures have to bounce back next year, or there's trouble. He's right to say that last year saw a very large increase in applications, and so a fall might be expected, but it wasn't necessarily inevitable.

Here's what the papers have to say.
(Times. Independent. Guardian. Telegraph.)

The main amusement appears to be coming via Bill Rammell's comments about some humanities degrees, which the papers seem to consider something close to high treason. Perhaps if he'd used media studies as an example (which has also fallen), they'd have praised him?

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