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Higher Education

Volume 465: debated on Wednesday 24 October 2007

To ask the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills what proportion of university students have parents in the (a) A, (b) B, (c) C, (d) C1, (e) D and (f) E social groupings. (155792)

The latest available information is shown in the table. The figures include acceptances on full-time undergraduate courses in the academic year 2006/07 for students who applied through the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS). They do not include acceptances on full-time undergraduate courses for students who applied directly to higher education institutions or part-time undergraduate courses.

English domiciled acceptances to full-time undergraduate courses by National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification (NS-SEC)1, academic year 2006/07

Number

Percentage2

1. Higher managerial and professional occupations

48,529

22.7

2. Lower managerial and professional occupations

66,823

31.2

3. Intermediate occupations

30,649

14.3

4. Small employers and own account workers

15,926

7.4

5. Lower supervisory and technical occupations

10,030

4.7

6. Semi-routine occupations

29,309

13.7

7. Routine occupations

12,577

5.9

Total known

213,843

100.0

8. Unknown

75,386

Total

289,229

1 NS-SEC was introduced in 2002/03 and replaced the previous classification based on six social class groups.

2 Based on those whose NS-SEC is known.

Source:

Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS).

The latest data for English domiciled students applying for entry in 2007 show that the proportion of students from lower socio-economic groups increased slightly compared to the corresponding data in 2006.