2
which most young home entrants are drawn) will begin to decline in size from 1982/83 and will fall much more steeply from 1990/91: the children are already born. But there is no certainty (nor can there be) about t proportion of the age group likely to be suitably qualified for and willing to embark on higher education courses. During the 1960s participation rapidly increased; but over the last seven years it has been steady at about 14% of the 18 year-old age group. (It is a measure of the uncertainties inherent in higher education projections that the figures underlying the projections in the 1972 White Paper, Education: A Framework for Expansion, Cmnd 5174, assumed that participation would now be growing to reach 22% by 1981 and still rising strongly.) The projections in Appendix II are based on variant assumptions about how participation rates will move over the period up to 1994: a "high variant" assuming growth to 21%, a "central projection" assuming growth to 18%, and a "low variant" assuming only very modest growth to 15%. Despite this range of uncertainty, the projections suggest that (on any of the variant assumptions about participation) demographic decline will be such a strong influence that total higher education numbers will reach a plateau in the mid-1980s and in the 1990s fall sharply. (It will of course be necessary to keep demographic trends under close review: the picture beyond 1994 could be materially affected by an early up-turn in the birthrate.)
6. The following charts illustrate both how full-time and sandwich participation rates and total student numbers have actually grown since 1960 and the forward projections detailed in Appendix II.
Chart 1. Age participation rates.
Higher education full-time and sandwich students:
Actual and variant projections to 1994/95, Great Britain.
22
20
20
18
16
14
12
10
Age Participation Rate (%)
8
Actual
Projected
2
High
Central
Low
64/5
689 72/3
76/7 80/1 84/5 88/9
92/3
1960/1
Academic year