Our Programmes team works to help bright and talented young people from lower income backgrounds access life changing opportunities, in partnership with leading universities. We’re seeing more demand for our programmes than ever this year, so our Director of Programmes, Katy Hampshire, took a deep dive into our applications data to understand some of the trends and drivers.

Each year thousands of students apply to our Summer Schools and employability programmes. We aim to help them grow their confidence, develop the skills needed to navigate higher education and the workplace, and make informed decisions about their next steps.

This year we had a record 29,500 students applying from across the UK. That’s a 25% increase on last year and over 10,000 more than 2 years ago. Over 80% of our applicants met at least one of our indicators of low socio-economic background, which include: pupils who received free school meals at secondary school, those would be in the first generation of their family to attend university, those who come from an area with a low rate of progression to higher education and/or a high level of socio-economic deprivation, and pupils who are care-experienced

So what’s going on? One obvious factor is the population growth of 17 to 18 year olds which is expected to peak in 2030. Meanwhile at our end we have also invested, alongside our university partners, in strategic marketing through teachers, schools and social media.

However, the rate of increase has far exceeded our expectations. There is a clear and continuing demand for programmes like ours, set against a background of ongoing challenges for those from lower-income backgrounds in accessing the most competitive universities, courses and careers. At the same time, we are hearing that financial pressures on universities are causing their own ‘access and participation’ initiatives to be cut back.

The desire for in person experiences

In terms of numbers, our residential Summer Schools, held at 12 leading universities across the UK, have seen the greatest increase with an additional 5,700 applicants over the last two years (a 41% increase). Our in-person employability programmes particularly in the banking and finance sector and for medicine also saw significant growth with a further 2,500 applicants over the same period.

Meanwhile our online employability programmes, designed to enable students who don’t live within commuting distance of our university partners or for those whom an online experience is more accessible,  saw strong growth in the year to 2023/24 but plateaued this year. It is too early to draw conclusions, but this suggests a strong demand for in-person experiences.

Student wariness to debt

We also saw strong growth in applications for our Access Apprenticeship programme and our US Programme, delivered in partnership with the Fulbright Commission UK. These two programmes also had the highest proportion of applicants meeting key indicators of low socio-economic background. 42% of applicants for Access Apprenticeships were eligible for free school meals and 72% were living in an area of disadvantage. For the US programme these figures were higher still at 52% and 80% respectively.

This may reflect the fact that successful students on these programmes could access higher education without incurring debt (by gaining access to a degree apprenticeship or full scholarship from a US university). Contrast this with the background of highly publicised levels of student debt and student finance not covering basic living costs – as outlined in our research – which are very real and concerning issues for many students, especially those from less wealthy backgrounds. We continue to campaign for improvements to the student maintenance system in England, specifically via the reintroduction of maintenance grants for the poorest students and a more progressive repayment model.

Regional factors

For our Summer School programmes where students can apply from anywhere in the UK, 5% of our applicants were from Scotland, 90% of whom applied for one of our 3 Scottish university partner Summer Schools. This is almost certainly a reflection on the differing university financing systems – the only other university of note in Scottish student applications is Cambridge, where 6% applied.

Welsh students made up 3% of our total applications and 30% of those students applied to our Welsh partner university (Cardiff) which offers courses in medicine and dentistry, with the remainder split across mostly English universities. In England 33% of applicants were from London, with the lowest proportion from the North East. English applications broadly mirror the regional proportions achieving our academic criteria, with some under-representation most noticeable in the North West.

 

STEM subjects grow in popularity

We saw increased demand for STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) subjects again this year. At least 40% of all applications were for STEM courses and a further 19% for medicine and dentistry. Social sciences – primarily law or business-related courses – were the next most popular followed by arts and humanities. Medicine and dentistry courses were the most oversubscribed. Meanwhile some arts and humanities courses struggled to fill places with subjects such as languages and music having particularly low applications, especially when looking at applicants from lower socio-economic backgrounds.

This is reflective of systemic challenges and funding towards arts and humanities, with some universities deeming these courses no longer viable. We also know that whilst financial outcomes do differ by course, degrees are central to the creative workforce. Up to 69% of those working in core creative occupations such as actors, dancers, artists and writers have degrees and these opportunities should not be the preserve of the more advantaged.

Gender imbalance

The proportion of male applicants to our programmes increased only slightly from 31% to 33% this year. While disappointing, this mirrors the under-representation of males within higher education more widely. Traditional STEM based subjects attracted more males with Pathways to Engineering having 60% male applicants and Pathways to Banking & Finance 56%. In contrast for Pathways to Law and Pathways to Medicine only 20% of applicants were male. It is not that they aren’t applying to these sector based programmes, rather that we are seeing significantly higher numbers of female applicants.

Similar trends can be seen in Summer School subject choices where STEM subjects including engineering, maths and computer science courses have more male applicants. Two UK Summer School courses attracted 10% of all our male applicants across all programmes. One was an aeronautical engineering course and the other was computer science and economics course, both at Imperial College London.

Looking ahead

We know that there will be continued growth in the 18-year-old population through to 2030 and that the short-term economic outlook for the country means the pool of eligible applicants for our programmes is likely to grow.

This may be tempered slightly due to concerns from young people about the cost/benefit value of a degree. Nonetheless we still expect to see increased demand over the next few years.

Universities are facing unprecedented financial pressure. The challenge for us will be in ensuring that the less advantaged young people are not the ones who get squeezed out.

Our offering

The Sutton Trust is proud to partner with highly competitive universities, employers and the Fulbright Commission to offer over 4,000 places across our in-person programmes to applicants. In recent years we have been able to triple this support with our online platform Sutton Trust Online, supported by Bloomberg, which provides students with the confidence, skills and self-efficacy to successfully apply and thrive at highly competitive universities, courses and careers. This has allowed us to triple our support, reaching 12,000 young people from disadvantaged backgrounds a year.

As we look to the future, we have ambitious plans to scale further and offer many more young people access to these life changing opportunities. However, as a registered charity, we are reliant on the generosity of our funders to help us meet the growing demand. We are enormously grateful for your support.