Jamie Doward and Rebecca Ratcliffe cite Sutton Trust research on student debt in an Observer news feature

In the past, a school pupil thinking of going to university would make a decision after attending an open day or two and a chat with a careers adviser.

Today, though, a generation that uses smartphones to hook up is equally reliant on technology to connect with academia. Rather than the quality of its pastoral care, canteens and libraries, a student’s perception of a university is largely framed by how well it uses social media.

New research, to be published this year by the department of marketing at Bournemouth University, has found that universities are taking the battle to recruit students into the virtual world.

……

So far, the number of 18-year-olds attending university has remained stable despite the decline in their overall numbers. A greater concern for universities is the huge decline in the number of mature and part-time students. Figures from the Office for Fair Access show that, between 2009 and 2015, the number of people aged over 21 entering higher education fell by 48%, from 339,990 to 177,295. Over the same period, the number of part-time entrants also declined massively, from 266,605 to 105,715, a 60% decrease.

Mounting fears about debt levels appear to lie behind the decline. Research by the Sutton Trust suggests the typical English student will end up with debts of £44,000 upon graduation, significantly higher than anywhere else in the English-speaking world, including the US. The Trust suggests that almost half of British teenagers worry about the amount of money they will owe when they leave university.

Read their full piece here