| 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% |
| 2023-24 | 32,810 | 5,445 | 16.7% | 620 | 1.9% |
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
Introduction
This is the ninth 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 2023-24. The background tables provide extensive breakdowns covering entrants, qualifiers, college student outcomes, college leaver destinations, university graduate outcomes, and university staffing.
This publication primarily uses three metrics: (i) Scottish-domiciled full-time first degree entrants to university (FTFD), (ii) Scottish-domiciled undergraduate entrants to university (SDUE),1 and (iii) Scottish-domiciled all undergraduate HE entrants to the tertiary sector. The report presents data relating to the Commission on Widening Access (COWA) targets. An overview of COWA is contained in the Annex.
- To avoid delays, this publication has been initially released without articulation data. The introduction of HESA Data Futures has presented challenges in the matching of student records between academic years. We are therefore also undertaking deeper data quality checks which has delayed the availability of articulation analysis. We expect to incorporate the articulation statistics into an updated release of the full publication before the end of 2025.
Notable Changes in Reporting
For 2023-24 university data, we have amended the HESA derived fields used to identify Scottish-domiciled and full-time entrants or qualifiers from university. This is a minor technical change that ensures alignment across HESA and SFC data reporting. The impact on the data is minimal: the new technical definition identifies 60 more Scottish-domiciled full-time first degree entrants in 2023-24 than the technical definition used previously, resulting in a total population of 32,810. This represents an increase of 0.2% in the population of students used in the statistics. Figures prior to 2023-24 have not been restated due to the minimal change, and historical figures therefore remain identical to those published previously. The change in population has minimal impact on the statistics, so figures are still comparable across academic years. A technical breakdown of the variables used and a full explanation of the change are provided in the Notes sheet in the background tables.
A change to the funding qualifying date for full-time college students in 2023-24 has meant that more students are eligible for inclusion in our analysis. This particularly affects SIMD20, care experienced and disabled students as they are more likely to withdraw early.2 Therefore more full-time college entrants from these groups are being counted and this has increased the rates of non-completion. Full details are provided in the Notes sheet in the background tables.