Emma Reynolds – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Emma Reynolds on 2015-11-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment the Government has made of the potential effect on student numbers of abolishing grants and maintenance allowances and introducing student loans and tuition fees for nurses’ training places; and what assessment the Government has made of the effect on students from poorer backgrounds of abolishing grants and maintenance allowances and introducing student loans and tuition fees for such training places.

Ben Gummer

The Government assessment undertaken to date is that nursing is consistently one of the most popular courses on the University Central Administration Service (fifth), with 57,000 applicants for around 20,000 nursing places in 2014. Midwifery and Allied Health Professional courses receive higher than average applications as well.

A maximum £9,000 tuition fee for other subjects at higher education institutions was introduced in 2012. Between 2012 and 2014 the number of English domiciled applicants to enter full-time undergraduate courses in the United Kingdom increased by 7.5% (from 454,000 in 2012 to 487,870 in 2014). Figures for 2015 cycle will be released in mid-December and early indicators suggest that there will be further increase in 2015.

Students from the most disadvantaged areas in England were 72% more likely to apply to higher education in 2015 than 2006.