| Academic Year | Total Entrants | Entrants from MD20 | % MD20 entrants | CE Entrants | % CE entrants |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013-14 | 28,285 | 3,850 | 13.7% | 145 | 0.5% |
| 2014-15 | 28,640 | 3,965 | 13.9% | 170 | 0.6% |
| 2015-16 | 28,770 | 4,015 | 14.0% | 160 | 0.6% |
| 2016-17 | 28,885 | 3,965 | 13.8% | 170 | 0.6% |
| 2017-18 | 29,880 | 4,650 | 15.6% | 255 | 0.8% |
| 2018-19 | 31,065 | 4,900 | 15.9% | 320 | 1.0% |
| 2019-20 | 30,620 | 4,970 | 16.4% | 370 | 1.2% |
| 2020-21 | 33,290 | 5,515 | 16.7% | 510 | 1.5% |
| 2021-22 | 33,885 | 5,595 | 16.5% | 545 | 1.6% |
| 2022-23 | 32,760 | 5,310 | 16.3% | 585 | 1.8% |
This is an Official Statistics publication. All Official Statistics should comply with the UK Statistics Authority’s Code of Practice for Statistics, which promotes the production and dissemination of Official Statistics that inform decision-making. Find out more about the Code of Practice for Statistics at the UK Statistics Authority’s website.
Overview
UPDATE: University retention and articulation analysis was added to this publication on 17 December 2024. The full background tables are now available, along with the final two sections of this report.
Introduction
This is the eighth SFC Report on Widening Access, providing updated statistics relating to equality and diversity of the student population across Scotland’s Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and colleges for 2022-23. The background tables provide extensive breakdowns covering entrants, qualifiers, college completion rates, college leaver destinations, university graduate outcomes, and university staffing. The Annex document provides additional context and metadata.
This publication uses three metrics in its university figures: (i) Scottish-domiciled full-time first degree (FTFD) entrants, (ii) Scottish-domiciled undergraduate entrants (SDUE), and (iii) Scottish-domiciled all undergraduate HE entrants. The latter is the broadest definition of undergraduate and includes part-time. This is shown alongside full-time in the COWA tables and data presented here, allowing us to combine with college HE to derive figures for the tertiary sector. Meanwhile SDUE is only shown in the background tables and uses a slightly narrower definition comprised of first degree and other undergraduate sub-degree provision at HN-level only.1 For a breakdown of these levels of study, see the Context Data sheet in the background tables.
For academic year 2022-23 HESA introduced a new data platform and a new model for their student record. HEIs faced notable challenges in making their student returns for 2022-23. Changes to how certain information is now collected in the student record and the transition to using the new Student record have both impacted the publication’s statistics. A full account of data quality for the 2022-23 student collection can be found in HESA’s quality report and the data insights tool. Affected statistics have been highlighted in the text of this publication and in related background tables.
Due to the introduction of HESA Data Futures, HESA was delayed in providing SFC with the necessary datasets to complete university retention and articulation analysis, and there were deeper data quality checks than is normally required. To avoid further delays, this publication was initially released without the retention and articulation data, which were then incorporated into this updated version.