Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate her Department has made of the number of students that will be entering further education colleges in the 2025-26 academic year.

The information requested is not held centrally.

For capital funding, the department uses information from a number of sources, including the Office for National Statistics, to understand future demand so that there is sufficient capacity in the system.

For revenue funding for 16 to 19-year-olds, allocations to colleges are based on the previous year’s numbers, with growth funding available where there is exceptional growth. The most recently published 16 to 19 student numbers relate to the 2023/24 academic year and can be found in the funding allocations for the 2024/25 academic year at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/16-to-19-education-and-skills-funding#published-allocations.