Indicators for higher education in further education colleges

A report presenting indicators for higher education in English further education colleges (FECs), including the first publication of employment indicators, has been published.
HEFCE’s analysis of widening participation, non-continuation and employment indicators shows that FECs continue to perform strongly in terms of widening participation. Key findings are as follows.

• FECs are continuing to perform better than expected in the widening participation indicator, when compared with the sector-adjusted average for the sector which takes into account the mix of students at institutions.
• As a sector, FECs performed better than expected in the non-continuation indicator for first degree students, with a non-continuation rate of 13.6 per cent compared with a sector-adjusted average of 13.9 per cent.
• Among other undergraduate entrants at FECs, the non-continuation rate was slightly higher than expected at 21.0 per cent.
• 83.6 per cent of full-time first degree qualifiers, and 92.7 per cent of full-time other undergraduate qualifiers, registered at FECs continued into work or further study.

What the tables show

• The widening participation indicators show the proportion of full-time entrants aged under 21 years from neighbourhoods which have a low proportion of young people going in to higher education.
• The non-continuation indicators show the proportion of students (given separately for young and mature students) who do not continue in to a second year of higher education.
• The employment indicators show the proportion of qualifiers from an undergraduate course of HE in 2010-11 who continued into work or further study after 6 months. This proportion is provided separately for full-time students on first degree and other undergraduate programmes.

We intend to publish an update of this report in early 2014.

• Read the report