To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what his estimate is of the likely number of (a) UK and (b) foreign students studying at universities in England in each of the next five years. (132867)

Estimates of likely numbers of students have not yet been made for this period. Over the last five years, the number of UK based students at English higher education institutions increased by 200,000 (14 per cent.) to 1.67 million and the number of overseas students at such institutions increased by 80,000 (40 per cent.) to 275,000.

Against that background, we expect many more students from both the UK and abroad to participate in higher education over the next five years.

Under the second phase of the Prime Minister’s initiative, a target has been set for an extra 70,000 non-EU international higher education students and 30,000 non-EU international further education students to be recruited to UK higher education institutions and further education colleges by 2011.