Postgraduates
Course length
The total projection
assume that policies on fees and overseas students will remain unchanged for 15 years, but it is necessary to include some figures to illustrate total student numbers. Three variants are used for the total number of mature and overseas entrants for the period up to 1981/82, after which each is held constant until 1994/95.
12. Postgraduates in the university sector are projected as separate flows: home student entry is assumed to reflect the output of graduates with good first degrees; for overseas students trend projections have been modified to take account of announced restrictions. Postgraduate numbers in the non-university sector are small, and these are carried through the calculations with the other students.
13. The series for total student numbers are obtained from the separate entry streams using a conversion measure derived from historic series of total student numbers related to total entrants, treating the main sectors separately. These measures have been projected on current aggregate values which have been fairly stable in the past. The measures could change if, for example, two-year courses became more popular or wastage rates altered, but the present projections make no allowance for this kind of imponderable.
14. Table 5 below shows in some detail the sum total of projections calculated on the respective bases described above. The upper, medium and lower variants mainly reflect the inclusion in the totals of variant assumptions about the APR of young home entrants.
15. The central line shows numbers projected to remain at about the current level for another two or three years (reflecting in particular current constraints due to fee levels and overseas student policies) and then to rise steeply to about 560,000 by 1981/82. This rate of rise is projected to continue for a further two years, after which the rate of growth tapers off and numbers remain at about 600,000 (plus or minus 5,000) through the second half of the 1980s. There is then a sharp decline equivalent to the rate of growth between 1979 and 1981.
16. The upper variant involves an increase to a peak of 662,000 in 1989/90 and the lower variant a peak of 551,000 in 1984/85. From the end of the 1980s both these variants show the same sharp decline as the central projection. This is because of the predominance of young home entrants in the make-up of total numbers coupled with the flattening off and subsequent decline in the 18 year-old age group in the 1980s. If the projected fall in demand at the end of the period were to be offset by increasing numbers of young home entrants, the APR for this group on any of the three variants would have to rise by about five percentage points over the five years to 1994/95. Though such a marked improvement in participation rates would not be wholly unprecedented, necessary caution dictates the assumption that it will not occur without some new and substantial stimulus at the time.
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