UK university applications drop for second year running

There's been another drop in the number of students applying for university, new figures from UCAS show.

The data, which is from mid-December, shows applications down by 6.3% in England, down by 11.7% in Wales and down by 3.9% in Scotland, compared to the number of applications at the same time in 2012. Northern Ireland was the only part of the UK to experience an increase - with numbers of applicants up by 0.5%.

More on this university applications down story here...

The drop is being blamed by many on high tuition fees. Is that fair? Do you know anyone who has been put off from going to university by the prospect of paying fees? Do you think there are other reasons for the second drop in as many years?

Not to mention the fact that people are now considering abroad - my old school now has 10% going to the US, whereas it had none 5 years ago

They rich or summin?

I think fees are contributing more than people realise, or perhaps like to think. The bureacrats who allowed the fee rise are particularly guilty of this in my opinion - "Tuition fees aren't to blame! It just happens to be a coincidence that applications have fallen for the two years the new fee rate has been in place!"
I have a (lunatic) friend studying medicine with an integrated degree also (so, 6 years compared to 5) and he's already considering doing a Masters afterwards. 7 years at university would equal a £63,000 bill for the education alone, not to mention living costs - the poor bugger's studying in London. He could easily wind up with a debt pushing the 100 grand mark. Which is crazy.
Now, this is quite a specific case, granted, and I know the argument "You don't pay it back until you're earning £21K or over", but one of the reasons for pursuing tertiary education is to break into that higher pay bracket.
Education is a right, not a privilege. The politicians who allowed the rise in fees went to university for free and have no clue what it's like to be landed with a debt of such magnitude so early on in your adult life. It's essentially a mortgage for your education.
Ultimately, it boils down to the fact that we are going to be paying tens of thousands of pounds for a degree which was previously free of charge, or very cheap. Which I think is completely unfair.
I'm still going to pursue a degree and hopefully a Masters after that because I want to go into a fairly specific field, and I know that tertiary education is going to be the only way for me to break into that. But I'm very uneasy about the fact that my degree is going to be terrible value for money compared to years gone by.
At the very least they could subsidise the more vocational degrees - medicine, dentistry, opthamology, paramedic science, etc.

Does that make it easier for those who have applied to get in? So Universitys will fill up their not so competitive courses?

I never really understood why raised tuition fees were a cause of concern for anyone, really. Sure, it's a bugger that we have to pay more back, but the payment rates are so low that most people wouldn't miss the money... Especially if they got a graduate job.

Can anyone expand on this for me? Why are people being turned away by the loan?

I think it really depends on what course you're going for and also which uni you're looking at. I'm applying for anthropology (which isn't particularly well known or competitive anyway) but for the likes of Medicine, Dentistry, Law, Economics, History etc, applications will still be very high and the drop in applicants will likely have little to no effect. Unis like Oxbridge, LSE and Durham will still be flooded with applications because they're so well respected, and people aiming for top universities will likely place higher value on the degree they get rather than the fee they pay.

I could give you the opinion of my little brother, if you like. He's wanted to study veterinary medicine for years, which is either a 5 or 6 year degree depending on where you go.
We're not particularly well off and we both attend/ed private school on bursaries (I'm currently on a gap year for medical reasons).
He's now changed his mind completely because it's estimated he'll leave uni with a debt of £50-60K minimum so he's currently looking into working with animal sanctuaries.
I don't know if he'll change his mind further down the line, but for a fifteen year old, the thought of paying back a five figure sum is very daunting. Not to mention he's quite stubborn, so it's partly a matter of principle; he's fuming that the people currently in power got to go to uni for free, yet we're being landed with a mountain of debt. Admittedly, the pay back plan is well thought out, but just because you don't have bailiffs banging down your door does that make it right? Having to pay back tens of thousands of pounds when previously no-one paid fees? A 'manageable' payback plan doesn't detract from the fact that we will be dipping into our hard earned salaries for years, perhaps decades to come to pay for a degree that seems to be rapidly losing it's value.

To be honest, the drop is most likely to be due to those who would have gone to study a less academic subject at uni,

On the contrary, I very large part of the drop last year, and I expect the same this year, will be in people studying traditional academic subjects which do not automatically lead to careers.

English and history took a beating last year and are likely to do so again.