Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many students started an undergraduate degree course at each higher education institution in England in each year since 2017; and what proportion of those students had left that course by (a) Christmas and (b) Easter of the first year.

Official Statistics on student retention are published by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) as part of their UK Performance Indicators.

For the academic years 2014/15 to 2019/20, the following link: https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/performance-indicators/non-continuation/table-t3 shows the number of undergraduate entrants[1] at each English higher education provider and their associated non-continuation rates.

These non-continuation rates are defined as the percentage of first year students who do not continue their studies after 12 months (full-time students) or 24 months (part-time students). Rates specific to leaving courses by (a) Christmas and (b) Easter are not published by HESA.

Whilst the department holds HESA Student data from which it could derive the information requested on how many students started an undergraduate degree course at each higher education institution since 2017, the information is not readily available and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

[1] Who did not leave within 50 days of commencing study.