Introduction
This Statistical First Release (SFR) is the annual first release of HESA student data. In previous years it has been titled "Higher education student enrolments and qualifications obtained at higher education providers in the United Kingdom". This release focuses on all publicly funded UK HE providers and the University of Buckingham. It also includes, for 2016/17, all HE students registered at further education (FE) colleges in Wales (of which there were 1,400 students). All are fully subscribed members of HESA who supply the complete Student Record. Summary information on HE students at FE colleges in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland will be reported on separately, alongside headline figures from this release and student numbers at alternative providers to illustrate the totality of higher education provision. This information will be published as part of the Higher Education Student Statistics: Alternative Providers 2016/17 release in February 2018.
This SFR also includes information from the HESA Aggregate offshore record (see figure 12). This record captures students studying wholly outside the UK who are either registered with the reporting HE provider or who are studying for an award of the reporting HE provider.
Readers should be aware that data definitions sometimes change over time. This, and coverage changes can affect the validity of time series comparisons. Any significant changes have been explained in the definitions.
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