Official Statistics

Early-in-year student withdrawal notifications: academic year 2018/19 to 2023/24 up to 29/11/2023

Published 21 December 2023

Applies to England, Northern Ireland and Wales

Introduction and context

In December 2020, owing to the significant public interest, the Student Loans Company (SLC) took the decision to publish data on the withdrawal notifications it receives from higher education providers (HEPs) in order to contribute towards an understanding of how the COVID-19 pandemic may be impacting students.

To provide insight into potential emerging trends, SLC published updates of these figures throughout academic year 2020/21. Due to continuing interest, SLC will continue to publish this series throughout academic year 2023/24. This publication is the first in the AY 2023/24 series. Due to the early in year nature of this dataset any conclusions should be made with caution.

This data includes only those students approved for funding by SLC and confirmed as enrolled and attending their course between academic year 2018/19 and 2023/24. It does not include students who have not been awarded student finance from SLC. Whilst the majority of UK students apply for student finance, not all do and therefore, these statistics should not be used to analyse trends or to draw conclusions regarding the full UK student population.

Based on data at this early effective date, SLC has seen an overall decrease (- 5%) in student withdrawal notifications for the purpose of student finance in this academic year, compared to the same point in the previous year. This is evident within UK students funded by Student Finance England and Student Finance Wales along with Student Finance Northern Ireland, offset by an increase in overall EU (outside UK) students.

Overview

This is an ad hoc publication from SLC to provide the number of notifications that SLC has received from HEPs informing that a student has withdrawn from their course for academic year 2023/24. The data is compared to the same time period in the five previous academic years (2018/19 through to 2022/23).

SLC requires HEPs to submit accurate and timely notifications of withdrawal decisions when a student has withdrawn from a university or college. This is to ensure our payments to the student and to the HEP are correct.

A withdrawal applies if the student leaves and does not intend to re-engage in their course. It means there is no further obligation on the student to pay fees to the HEP. A withdrawal terminates a student’s period of student finance eligibility and SLC will recalculate their maintenance and tuition fee support.

The data shows a total count for UK & EU (outside UK) domiciled students funded by Student Finance England, Student Finance Wales and Student Finance Northern Ireland only. Scotland domiciled students studying in the UK have not been included. SLC does not hold as robust data concerning Scotland funded students as such notifications are handled by Student Awards Agency Scotland (SAAS).

The time period covered by this publication is from 1 August until 31 August (of the following academic year) inclusive for each academic year. For context, 1 August 2023 was the earliest course start date for the 2023/24 academic year and 29 November 2023 is the date of the latest data refresh of SLC databases prior to publication of this information. The same relative effective dates of the relevant year have been used for the previous academic years provided to allow for comparison.

Withdrawal notifications may be deleted later in the academic year if it is deemed that they were raised in error. Figures from academic year 2018/19 and 2019/20 were retrospectively reported, so any adjustments will have been accounted for in the reported volumes. Figures reported for academic year 2020/21 through to 2023/24 were captured in real-time, so adjustments may still be made as the academic year progresses. Therefore, direct comparisons to these earlier years at this effective date should be done with caution.

The irregular start to academic year 2020/21 caused by the COVID-19 pandemic included a number of courses starting later than in previous years, some universities extended the ‘cooling off’ period before the student becomes liable for tuition fees and, more generally, increased the potential for administrative disruption. It is possible any changes in trends may have resulted from students withdrawing from their courses later into the academic year than in previous years, combined with HEPs providing withdrawal notifications to SLC later. Therefore, while the previous years’ data has been provided for comparison, any conclusions should be made with caution noting the irregularities of academic year 2020/21.

Caveats and data definitions

• The data included in this release is full-time and part-time undergraduates only. Postgraduate data is not included.
• Data is produced from notifications of ‘Withdrawal’. Any notification which has been marked as ‘Never Attended’ or ‘Deceased’ are not included within these counts. Notifications which are marked as ‘Suspended’ are also not included.
• Any notification that contains manual errors regarding notification, withdrawal or course dates have been excluded as these will be required to be re-submitted by HEPs.
• Any notification that is associated with an ineligible application for student finance has been excluded.
• Any notification which has been marked as ‘Deleted’ by HEPs has been excluded.

Results

Figure 1a: Student withdrawal notifications from HEPs by domicile and academic year: 2018/19 to 2023/4

Coverage: Students domiciled in UK and EU (outside UK) domiciled receiving student support (except Scotland-funded students)
Effective date: 29 November of relevant academic year

Domicile	2018/19	2019/20	2020/21	2021/22	2022/23	2023/24
England	5,290	5,542	5,040	5,634	5,670	5,480
Wales	214	285	192	381	358	300
Northern Ireland	250	165	128	164	245	198
EU (outside UK)*	116	121	88	38	29	31
Total	5,870	6,113	5,448	6,217	6,302	6,009

Figure 1b: Student withdrawal notifications from HEPs by domicile and academic year as a % of total undergraduates: 2018/19 to 2023/24

Coverage: Students domiciled in UK and EU (outside UK) domiciled receiving student support (except Scotland-funded students)
Effective date: 29 November of relevant academic year

Domicile	2018/19	2019/20	2020/21	2021/22	2022/23	2023/24
England	0.5%	0.5%	0.4%	0.4%	0.5%	0.4%
Wales	0.3%	0.4%	0.3%	0.5%	0.5%	0.4%
Northern Ireland	0.5%	0.4%	0.3%	0.4%	0.6%	0.5%
EU (outside UK)*	0.2%	0.2%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%
Total	0.4%	0.4%	0.4%	0.4%	0.5%	0.4%

Note:

• This data includes only those students approved for funding by SLC. Whilst the majority of UK students apply for student finance, not all do and therefore, these statistics should not be used to analyse trends or to draw conclusions regarding the full UK student population.
• *EU (outside UK) are funded by either England, Wales or Northern Ireland.
• Figures include only full-time and part-time undergraduate students (not postgraduate).
• Constituent parts may not add to totals due to rounding.
• Due to irregularities noted, such as late course start dates, the year-on-year figures may not be comparable.

Figure 2: Student withdrawal notifications from HEPs by domicile as % of total withdrawal notifications: 2018/19 to 2023/4

Coverage: Students domiciled in UK and EU (outside UK) domiciled receiving student support (except Scotland-funded students)
Effective date: 29 November of relevant academic year

Domicile	2018/19	2019/20	2020/21	2021/22	2022/23	2023/24
England	90%	91%	93%	91%	90%	91%
Wales	4%	5%	4%	6%	6%	5%
Northern Ireland	4%	3%	2%	3%	4%	3%
EU (outside UK)*	2%	2%	2%	1%	0.5%	0.5%
Total	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%

Note:

• This data includes only those students approved for funding by SLC. Whilst the majority of UK students apply for student finance, not all do and therefore, these statistics should not be used to analyse trends or to draw conclusions regarding the full UK student population.
• *EU (outside UK) are funded by either England, Wales or Northern Ireland.
• Figures include only full-time and part-time undergraduate students (not postgraduate).
• Constituent parts may not add to totals due to rounding.
• Due to irregularities noted, such as late course start dates, the year-on-year figures may not be comparable.

Figure 3: % Change of student withdrawal notifications from HEPs by domicile and academic year: 2018/19 to 2023/24

Coverage: Students domiciled in UK and EU (outside UK) domiciled receiving student support (except Scotland-funded students)
Effective date: 29 November of relevant academic year

Domicile	2018/19 to 2019/20	2019/20 to 2020/21	2020/21 to 2021/22	2021/22 to 2022/23	2022/23 to 2023/24
England	5%	- 9%	12%	1%	- 3%
Wales	33%	- 33%	98%	- 6%	- 16%
Northern Ireland	- 34%	- 22%	28%	49%	- 19%
EU (outside UK)*	4%	- 27%	- 57%	- 24%	7%
All domiciles	4%	- 11%	14%**	1%	- 5%

Note:

• This data includes only those students approved for funding by SLC. Whilst the majority of UK students apply for student finance, not all do and therefore, these statistics should not be used to analyse trends or to draw conclusions regarding the full UK student population.
• *EU (outside UK) are funded by either England, Wales or Northern Ireland.
• ** Omitting the outlying academic year of AY 2020/21, due to factors as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, it should be noted that the increase between AY 2019/20 and AY 2021/22 is just + 2% at this early point of the academic year.
• Figures include only full-time and part-time undergraduate students (not postgraduate).
• Constituent parts may not add to totals due to rounding.
• Due to irregularities noted, such as late course start dates, the year-on-year figures may not be comparable.

As a supplement to this publication we have provided two additional tables. Within the accompanying excel file, you will find:

• Table 1: Student withdrawal notifications from HEPs by domicile, academic year and mode of study

• Table 2: Student withdrawal notifications from HEPs by domicile, academic year and year of study

Additional Information

Definitions

Term	Definition
Domiciled	The country in which the applicant would normally reside in the three years prior to the start of the course.
Student	For the purpose of this publication, an applicant for student support becomes a student once the Student Loans Company has received confirmation that the applicant is attending a course with a higher education provider. Not all applicants take up a place.
Withdrawal	Withdrawal refers to the point at which scheduled learning, teaching and assessment activities, and other active and on-going engagement end in agreement with the provider.

Data sources

This publication uses data from SLC’s administrative systems. For details of the administrative data sources used in our publications please refer to GOV.UK.

Data quality

SLC has published the quality guidelines that it follows. As per those guidelines a quality plan is produced for each publication. The quality plan stipulates two stages of quality assurance. Data is extracted from the administrative systems then reviewed using a standard quality assurance checklist. The statistical tables created using that data are quality assured using the statistical quality guidelines. For further information, please refer to our Quality guidelines.

Related statistics publications

Previous copies of these experimental statistics can be found on our ‘Other Statistics’ page of GOV.UK.

SLC publish statistics on higher education funding for England, Wales and Northern Ireland. These are published at the same time as part of the series called ‘Student support for higher education’ and show academic year-end paid / awarded application figures for the years covered in this publication. Please refer to our latest release of this series which covers academic year 2022/23, with high-level early indication of academic year 2023/24 figures (as at 31 October 2023). The next version of this publication, covering academic year 2023/24 (with high-level early indication of academic year 2024/25 figures) is scheduled for release in November 2024.

Contact details

• Issued by: The Student Loans Company, 10 Clyde Place, Buchanan Wharf, Glasgow, G5 8AQ
• Press Office: press_office@slc.co.uk
• Lead Official for Statistics: enterprise_data_analytics@slc.co.uk
• Online: Click here to see our statistics page