Higher education participation rates have increased by a record margin in England, new figures suggest, but so did regional and gender inequalities.
Statistics from the Department for Education show 47 per cent of 15-year-olds in state schools in England in 2010-11 had entered higher education by the time they were 25.
This was up from 45.2 per cent of the previous year’s cohort and the largest increase on record. Just 38.8 per cent of the 2001-02 cohort – the first year recorded – went on to higher education.
A previous version of these statistics – which predicted future participation by age 30 using participation levels – has estimated higher education participation rates exceeding 50 per cent since 2015-16. This matched a target famously set by Tony Blair’s Labour government in 1999.
