Scottish Funding Council Report on Widening Access 2017-18

The Scottish Funding Council (SFC) has published its latest annual report of figures on the progress made towards Widening Access to higher education and on Scottish-domiciled entrants to higher and further education in Scotland by socio-economic deprivation, gender, ethnicity, disability, care experience and age. The report measures progress towards the Scottish Government targets.

Figures include:

• More students from Scotland’s 20% most deprived areas began a first degree course at a Scottish university than in the previous year. They represented 15.6% of Scottish students starting courses in that year – an increase of 685. The number of students from deprived areas starting their first degree increased by 1.8% and the retention rate increased by 2% for these areas. 
• In total, 2,545 entrants to colleges and universities were care experienced, accounting for 0.8% of all entrants (up from 2,070 in 2016-17)
• At 87.2%, the retention rate for care experienced students was slightly lower than that for students from deprived areas (89.4%), but still shows an increase, reflecting the work of universities and colleges to improve support to prevent students from not being able to complete their course.

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