University applications fall across Hampshire (From Hampshire Chronicle)

University applications fall across Hampshire

11:00am Sunday 5th February 2012 in News

HAMPSHIRE universities and colleges have suffered a fall in the number of students seeking places this autumn after the hike in tuition fees.

Figures from the University and Colleges Admission Service (Ucas) show a six per cent drop to 31,812 applications to the University of Southampton, where fees will be rising to £9,000 a year.

A more marked drop of 15 per cent to 12,127 applications was recorded at Southampton Solent University, where fees are rising to £7,800.

Trevor Thorne, director of marketing and communication at Southampton Solent, said student numbers had doubled over the last five years.

He said: “You don’t go from boom to bust in a single year. There are no conversations about redundancies or course cutting at this moment in time.

“At the moment we are in very good financial health.”

Sparsholt College near Winchester, which is mainly a further education college, has seen applications for degree courses falling by 28.5 per cent to 294. Fees are rising to £7,800.

By comparison, the University of Winchester escaped lightly with a 3.3 per cent drop in admissions, to 8,688.

A University of Winchester spokesman said: “Applications have increased significantly over the last few years and even with a 3.3 per cent decline this year still represents our second strongest year for applications, 16 per cent up on the 2010 figures following an annual increase of 14 per cent in 2011.”

At a time when many higher education institutions are cutting back, Winchester is building a new £5.6m teaching building and a £20m, 500-room hall of residence in Burma Road.

The cap on tuition fees will leap from £3,375 a year to £9,000 a year in 2012, after the Government slashed funding for higher education.