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Request 99/03

HESA 1997-98 derived statistics for funding allocations and monitoring

To

Heads of HEFCE-funded higher education institutions
Heads of DENI-funded Universities

Of interest to those responsible for

Student data, Audit, Finance

Reference

99/03

Publication date

January 1999

Enquiries to

Mr Morille Njau tel 0117 931 7338
e-mail m.njau@hefce.ac.uk

Executive summary

Purpose

  1. This document describes how we compare data returned in the Higher Education Students Early Statistics survey 1997 (HESES97) with data supplied on the 1997-98 Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) individualised student record. The technical supplement describes the methods used, and gives details of their weaknesses.
  2. We are comparing the two data sources to check data returned on HESES97, including forecast registrations and non-completions, as this information formed the basis for funding allocations in 1998-99. We believe this exercise helps to improve the quality both of data supplied to HESA, and of responses to the HESES survey. The comparison has shown the data to be more accurate this year than last.
  3. The reconstruction of HESES97 from the HESA record will also provide the basis for calculating the premium weighting for full-time mature undergraduate students, the premium based on the geodemographic classification of neighbourhood types, and the fee compensation for thin sandwich students, to be used in the funding allocations for 1999-2000.
  4. We are providing information on franchised-out students obtained from the HESA data-set, to enable institutions to check that it is accurate and suitable for publication.

    Key points

  5. Where we identify significant differences in the data, we will write to the institutions concerned and ask for a response.
  6. If the data remain unreconciled, we may audit both sets of data to arrive at agreed figures. Any amendments to data following this exercise may result in retrospective adjustments to funding.
  7. All institutions are invited to comment on the methods described in the technical supplement, and to contact us if they are concerned about the suitability for publication of the franchised-out data.

    Action required

  8. Where we require a response it should be sent to Morille Njau no later than 26 March 1999.

    Selection of institutions asked to respond

  9. We will ask for a response from institutions if any of the following are true:
    1. The total difference in holdback calculated using HESES97 and HESA data exceeds £500,000.
    2. The difference in holdback is more than 3 per cent of teaching grant for 1997-98.
    3. Part-time load factors vary by more than 0.1.
  10. Holdback was chosen as the basis of selection because:
    1. Holdback is calculated at the highest level of aggregation used in operating our funding process.
    2. It shows major changes in funding while remaining neutral to variations in other institutions' data.
  11. We will conduct similar exercises in future years. We have made the criteria in paragraph 9 more stringent this year than last. The 1998-99 HESA record will incorporate changes that will make it easier to identify the HESES population in the HESA record. We may then be able to narrow the criteria further.

    Responses required

  12. We will write separately to the institutions from which we require a response.
  13. In such cases and in the first instance, we would like explanations of differences in the following three areas:
    1. Columns 4 and 4a of the main student tables 1a, 2a and 3a.
    2. The proportions of students across fee bands and fee sources, tables 1b, 2b and 3b.
    3. Part-time load factors. These are calculated from table 3a.
  14. Responses should contain both estimates of the number of students involved and reasons for the differences. Where possible, responses should describe how to correct the discrepancies.
  15. If differences between the data cannot be reconciled, we may audit both sets of data. If data are amended, we may make retrospective adjustments to funding.
  16. All institutions are invited to comment on the methods described in the technical supplement, and to suggest how any errors they find in their data can be corrected. Please note that the next HESA record will have major changes following its review.
  17. Any institution that considers that the data on its franchised-out students are unsuitable for publication should contact us by 26 March 1999.
  18. We believe this exercise helps to improve the quality both of data supplied to HESA, and of responses to the HESES survey.

    Information supplied

  19. When we received signed-off data from HESA we performed the comparison. We are now writing to institutions indicating whether a response is required, and enclosing the following information:
    • a copy of the HESES97 return, including all amendments made during the funding process
    • HESES97 as re-created using data supplied to HESA, and the coding methods described in the technical supplement
    • the number of mature home and EC fundable full-time undergraduates
    • the numbers of young, English domiciled, home and EC fundable, full-time undergraduates in each of 40 neighbourhood types
    • the number of home and EC, thin sandwich students on their third year of programme of study
    • the numbers of franchised-out students
    • summary information comparing HESES97 to HESA data
    • a summary of HESA records excluded from the HESES re-creation.
  20. It is not possible to derive tables 1c and 1d from the HESA student record, so these tables will not be included in the re-creation.
  21. All the above data can be supplied electronically on request. An individualised record is also available on request. It contains the following additional fields:
    1. A flag showing whether or not the student is counted in HESES97 and, if not, why the student was excluded.
    2. The HESES classification of the student.
    3. The classification of the student’s neighbourhood type used to calculate the geodemographic premium. This field is completed for a restricted group of students only.
  22. This information is available to all institutions, but we will give priority to institutions from which we are expecting a response. To obtain any of the above, please contact Morille Njau (telephone 0117 931 7338, e-mail m.njau@hefce.ac.uk).
  23. A similar exercise planned for further education colleges, using the Further Education Funding Council Individualised Student Record conversion, has not proved possible, owing to the quality of the data and the differences in definitions that cannot be fully reconciled by the conversion. This will be undertaken when we think it will yield useful results.

    Deadline for responses

  24. Responses should arrive no later than 26 March 1999 and should be sent to:

    Mr Morille Njau
    Analytical Services Group
    HEFCE
    Northavon House
    Coldharbour Lane
    Bristol BS16 1QD

Technical supplement

  1. Purpose

  2. This supplement describes the method used to compare HESES and HESA data. It also gives details of known discrepancies between the data sources.
  3. This supplement is aimed at expert readers with in-depth knowledge of the data. Readers are advised to have a copy of the 1996-97 HESA coding manual and HESES97 (HEFCE 97/24) to hand when using this document.

    Fields used in comparisons

  4. Only certain fields, detailed below, were used to generate the comparison between HESES and HESA data. The field numbers shown relate to the combined record format of the HESA record. For institutions making a module-based return, some subject and cost centre information is taken from the module portion of the return.
  5. Throughout this supplement, fields taken from the HESA return are shown in capitals using the names given below.

    Field number

    Description

    Name

    2

    HESA institution identifier

    INSTID

    3

    Campus identifier

    CAMPID

    4

    Student identifier

    HUSID

    10

    Date of birth

    BIRTHDTE

    12

    Domicile

    DOMICILE

    26

    Date of commencement of programme

    COMDATE

    28

    Special students

    SPCSTU

    33

    Reason for leaving institution/completing programme

    RSNLEAVE

    35

    Date left institution or completed the programme of study

    DATELEFT

    41

    General qualification aim of student

    QUALAIM

    43

    Subject(s) of qualification aim

    SBJQA

    49

    Expected length of study programme

    SPLENGTH

    50

    Units of length

    UNITLGTH

    53

    Teacher training course identifier

    TTCID

    64

    Main source of funds

    MSFUND

    65

    Fundability code

    FUNDCODE

    66

    Fee status

    FEEELIG

    67

    Fee band

    FEEBAND

    68

    Major source of tuition fees

    MSTUFEE

    70

    Mode of study

    MODE

    71

    Location of study

    LOCSDY

    72

    Year of programme

    YEARPRG

    74

    Student FTE

    STULOAD

    75

    Postcode

    POSTCODE

    86

    Other institution providing teaching 1

    TINST1

    87

    Other institution providing teaching 2

    TINST2

    90

    Proportion not taught by this institution

    PCOLAB

    100,103,106,109, 112,115,118,121, 124,127,130,133, 136,139,142,145

    Cost centre 1-16

    COSTCN01-16

    101,104,107,110, 113,116,119,122, 125,128,131,134, 137,140,143,146

    Subject area of study 1-16

    SBJ01-16

    102,105,108,111, 114,117,120,123, 126,129,132,135, 138,141,144,147

    Proportion of subject 1-16

    SBJPER01-16

  6. Information was used on the method chosen to return student load on the HESA student record, because this affects the way years of programme of study for students studying on non-standard academic years are returned in HESES.
  7. The TINST fields were used to calculate numbers of franchised-out undergraduates. The POSTCODE field was used to determine the neighbourhood type of full-time and sandwich, home and EC fundable undergraduates in the HESES column 4 population, who were young on entry and had an English postcode.

    Differences between HESES and HESA data

  8. Some of the data returned in HESES cannot be re-created exactly using data supplied to HESA because of differences in definition. In such cases, reasonable approximations have been made. Listed below are areas where there may be some uncertainty about the correspondence of HESA records to HESES cells. Where possible, we have indicated the likely effects of the uncertainties.
  9. In some cases coding assumptions may have caused records to be wrongly rejected from the comparison, or wrongly assigned to a HESES cell within the comparison. If institutions believe this may have been the case, they can obtain full details of the assignment of each record, including rejected records and reasons for the rejection, from Morille Njau at the HEFCE. HUSID (Field 4) x QUALAIM (Field 41) x COMDATE (Field 26) triples will be used to identify student instances.
  10. Where the differences between the two data sources are large enough to require a response from institutions, it is highly unlikely that the differences listed below could provide a sufficient explanation.
  11. The differences are grouped as follows:
    1. Those that could affect the selection criteria, that is affect column 4 of the main tables.
    2. Those that do not affect column 4 of the main tables but could lead to differences in the other columns.
    3. Areas of uncertainty in completing HESES97.

    Differences critical to selection criteria

  12. The following categories of student were excluded from the HESES97 student population.

    Students who are writing-up

  13. Students who have mode of study coded as ‘writing-up’ in the July 1998 HESA return, and whose course was due to end before the start of the 1997-98 academic year, were excluded. Dormant students and those on a sabbatical were also excluded. Such students would not be part of the HESES97 population as no part of the year of programme of study in which they were actively pursuing studies would fall within the academic year 1997-98.

    Students with very low FTEs

  14. Students whose FTE for the year of programme of study is less than 3 per cent were also excluded. For institutions that do not split FTEs across academic years this was taken as STULOAD (Field 74) < 3. For institutions that do split load across years, an approximation was made for students on non-standard academic years according to the amount of time spent studying in the year.

    No countable years of study

  15. A student who has no FTE for the year of programme of study recorded within the academic year is excluded from HESES. Where the method of reporting FTEs to HESA is not split across academic years, this is straightforward, with students being excluded from HESES if:
    1. The FTE for a year of programme of study is reported in the academic year in which the student starts it, and the student is in their final year.
    2. The FTE for a year of programme of study is reported in the academic year in which the student finishes it, and the student is in their first year.
  16. Where the FTE for the year of programme of study is reported proportionally across the academic years in which it occurs, an approximation was made so that some students were counted in HESES and some excluded. The average FTEs of excluded records were added on to the FTEs of those that were included. For example, assuming a steady state where a student starts a course when another finishes, a student on a two-year course which runs from January 1998 to January 2000 would not be in HESES 1997-98. However, their FTE for January 1998 to July 1998 would be added on to that of a student whose course ran from January 1996 to January 1998.
  17. This is the approximation we are using until we have record linking in the HESA record between years, using the HIN triplets (HUSID, INSTID and NUMHUS). For more details see Annex L of the HESES98 document and the student instance number (NUMHUS field 151) of the 1998-99 HESA student coding manual.

    Non-completions

  18. Within HESES, a student who sits the final examination and fails is deemed to have completed. This situation cannot be identified using the HESA record, therefore all students who fail to complete for academic reasons have been excluded from the non-completion count. This means that the number of assumed countable years could be too high, as students who leave due to academic failure through the year will not be recorded as non-completions. This will be reflected in lower figures in ‘Column 3 non-completions'.

    Qualifications not requiring a programme of study

  19. Students whose sole qualification aim is an NVQ were not included in HESES97. Students were included if they gain both a recognised HE qualification and an NVQ as the result of a programme of study. Similarly, students whose sole qualification aim is ‘qualified teacher status only (licensed teachers)’ have been excluded.

    Differences not affecting selection criteria

  20. We were unable to reliably distinguish between ‘home and EC HEFCE fundable’ and ‘home and EC independently funded’ students. These two columns have therefore been combined in the HESES tables recreated from the HESA data. However, the HESES funding categories have been retained on the individualised record, with the HESES fields added.

    Mode of study

  21. The definition of mode of study given in HESES97 is more restrictive than that in the HESA coding manual. The following paragraphs give details of where it is difficult to reconcile the two definitions.
  22. HESES requires that full-time courses contain at least 24 weeks attendance at the institution within a year of programme of study. This is not part of the definition of full-time in the HESA manual. It is not always possible to identify the length of a year of programme of study as being greater than 24 weeks. The duration of a course in the HESA record covers periods of study and vacations; this is not the case with the HESES definition. For these comparisons it has been assumed that, for courses lasting less than one year, the duration of the course and the attendance time are equivalent. This could cause some students to be coded as full-time when they should have been coded as part-time.
  23. Some courses consist of intermittent blocks of full-time study which do not add up to 24 weeks per year of programme of study. We have not been able to identify these as part-time, so they might inflate the full-time numbers.
  24. HESES requires that full-time students should be on a course for which a full-time fee is chargeable. The HESA record only identifies the fee actually charged, which in some cases may not be identical to the fee chargeable for the course. For this reason it has not been possible to use this information in the current comparison. Some students may therefore have been classified as full-time when they have been returned as part-time on HESES.

    Fundability

  25. The Teacher Training Agency (TTA) funds INSET courses for students with qualified teacher status, so such students are defined as non-fundable in HESES. The TTCID (Field 53) field was used as a proxy to identify these students. All those coded as ‘INSET- primarily for school teachers’ were treated as INSET – QTS and therefore counted as non-fundable. Conversely those coded as ‘INSET – primarily for those other than school teachers’ were counted as HEFCE funded.

    Student load

  26. Student load recorded on HESES97 should relate to the years of programme of study being counted. In some cases this may not be consistent with the load returned on the HESA student record. However, it should be consistent with HESA data when summed over the programme of study. The reallocation of the FTEs of students with no countable years of study, described in paragraph 15, should ensure that differences caused by this are small.

    New entrants

  27. Figures shown in column 5 of the re-creation may not accurately reflect the numbers of new entrants returned on HESES. Where a year of programme is not a recognised concept of a course, that is, where YEARPRG (Field 72) has been coded as 99, students will only appear as new entrants if there is less than a year between their start of programme date, and 31 July 1998.

    Long and standard courses

  28. There is no field in HESA that records the length of a course within each year of programme (YEARLGTH - Field 73, is not used in England). The length of courses was assigned using the general qualification aim QUALAIM (Field 41) as follows:
    1. Long for doctorate and masters degrees, and for those on the third or later years of a professional clinical degree.
    2. Standard for all other HE awards which define the HESES97 population.
  29. This approximation may lead to students being assigned to a different course length category than they were assigned to in the HESES97 return.

    Areas of uncertainty in completing HESES97

    Forecasts of countable years of programme of study and non-completions

  30. HESES requires institutions to provide forecasts of countable years of programme of study between 2 December 1997 and 31 July 1998. Forecasts are by their nature inexact, and institutions with a high proportion of students following non-standard academic years may not be able to predict countable years of programme of study accurately.
  31. Forecasts of non-completions are also inexact. However, it is expected that these figures will, when considered as a whole, be an accurate reflection of actual non-completions.

    Coding assumptions used to generate data

  32. This section details the exact mappings used in the re-creation. It assumes detailed knowledge of both the HESA student record and the HESES return. Readers are advised to have copies of HESES97 and of the HESA student record coding manual for 1996-97 for reference when reading this section. The 1996-97 HESA coding manual for the student record applies to the 1997-98 HESA record, which is the one used in this comparison.
  33. The details listed below are similar to those in HESES97, but some minor alterations have been made to improve the matching.

    Students excluded from HESES

  34. The following students are excluded from HESES97:

    No countable years of study

    Where FTEs are reported at the beginning or end of the academic year and STULOAD (Field 74) = 0. Where the FTEs are reported as split the calculation is complex; further details are available on request.

    FE students

    QUALAIM (Field 41) = 71 to 78

    Students with no qualification aim

    QUALAIM (Field 41) = 97, 98, 99

    Students whose sole qualification aim is an NVQ or QTS (licensed teacher)

    QUALAIM (Field 41) = 44, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55

    Students on standard academic years who withdrew before 1/12/97

    DATELEFT (Field 35) <1/12/97 and RSNLEAVE (Field 33) = 4 to 11

    Students on non-standard academic years who withdrew before the anniversary of their commencement date

    (DATELEFT (Field 35) < (anniversary of commencement date) and RSNLEAVE (Field 33) = 4 to 11

    Incoming exchange students

    SPCSTU (Field 28) = 3, 4, 5, 6, 8

    Dormant, sabbatical or students writing-up

    MODE (Field 70) = 61,51 or (MODE = 41,42 and (COMDATE + course length) <1/8/97)

    Students taught wholly outside the UK

    LOCSDY (Field 71) = 7 and FUNDCODE (Field 65) <>1

    Students whose FTE<3%

    Where FTEs are reported at the beginning or end of the academic year and STULOAD (Field 74) <3. Where the FTEs are reported as split the calculation is complex, further details are available on request.

    Mode

  35. For the purposes of this comparison it has been assumed that all students are part-time unless they are full-time or sandwich. Thus no student is excluded from the comparison on the basis of indeterminate mode. The assumption that all courses are part-time by default means part-time numbers can be overstated.

    Full-time and sandwich

    Mode (Field 70) = 11, 21, 22, 52, 53

    AND length of course ³ 24 weeks

    AND the student is not sandwich year-out as defined below

    Sandwich year-out

    LOCSDY (Field 71) = 4, 5

    AND ((MODE (Field 70) = 52, 53 AND FEEBAND (Field 67) = 12, 22, 32) OR MODE = 21, 22)

    AND length of course ³ 24 weeks

    Part-time

    Any not meeting the criteria above

  36. HESES requires that a full-time student should study for at least 24 weeks within the year of programme of study. For those whose mode is recorded as full-time and the duration of the course was not measured in weeks, a full-time mode is only allowed in the HESES re-creation if the total course length is over 5 months. The table below shows which values of SPLENGTH (Field 49) allow a full-time mode to be selected.

    UNITLGTH

    SPLENGTH

    Mode

    1

    Any

    Full-time

    2

    >5

    Full-time

    3

    >=24

    Full-time

    Other (excluding 9)

    Any

    Part-time

    9

    99

    Full-time

    Level

  37. Assignment of students to level is based on QUALAIM (Field 41). Only students whose qualification aim is less than or equal to 44, or is 61 or 62, have been classified as HE and included in the HESES97 population. The table below details the precise split.

    Undergraduate

    QUALAIM = 20 to 43, 61

    Postgraduate Taught

    QUALAIM = 3 ,5, 7, 8, 10, 12, 13, 62

    Postgraduate Research

    QUALAIM = 2, 4, 6, 14

    Eligibility for core funding and residential status

  38. Students will be classified as home and EC fundable if FUNDCODE (Field 65) = 1 and TTCID (Field 53) = 0, 2, 4. Students will be treated as independently funded if FUNDCODE (Field 65) = 1 and MSFUND (Field 64) is not equal to any of the following: 1, 7 or 71. This identification of independently funded students is not reliable and not reproduced in the HESES tables re-created from the HESA data. Home and EC non-fundable students are those whose domicile is in the EU and FEEELIG (Field 66) = 1 or 3. All other students will be treated as island and overseas.

    Non-completions

  39. Years of programme of study were classified as not completed where RSNLEAVE (Field 33) = 4 to 11.

    Allocation to price groups

  40. Price groups are defined in terms of academic cost centres. The mapping of cost centre codes to price groups is given in the table below.

    Price group

    Cost centres

    A

    01, 02, 03

    B

    04, 08, 09, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 , 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21,39

    C

    05, 06, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28, 33, 36, 37

    D

    27, 29, 30, 31, 32, 34, 35, 38, 41

    Psychology

    07

    ITT

    Courses of initial teacher training leading to QTS (TTCID=1)

    INSET - QTS

    Courses of in-service education of teachers (TTCID=3), where the student has QTS

  41. The list of cost centres above includes new ones. These are:

    35 French, Spanish and German modern languages (was within cost centre 31, Language-based studies)

    36 Other modern languages (was within cost centre 31)

    37 Archaeology (maps onto cost centre 32)

    38 Sports science and leisure (maps onto cost centre 34)

    39 Computer software engineering (maps onto cost centre 20).

  42. Institutions had the option of using these new cost centres in their HESA returns from 1997-98 onwards, but they will not be compulsory until the 1998-99 return. Similarly, cost centres 15 (General sciences) and 22 (Other technologies) will not be valid from the 1998-99 return onwards but they were used in earlier returns; both have been included in price group B in this comparison.
  43. For 1997-98, because the new cost centres had not been implemented, we have used a mapping based on subject to try to match the data on HESA to those on HESES. If cost centre=25 and subject=G5 then the price group is B. The following subjects override the cost centre information, that is, whatever the cost centre the price group is allocated by the subject, provided the subject is one of those listed below:

    Price group

    HESA subject code

    C

    F4, Q5, Q9, R3, R5 to R8, T1 to T7, V6

    Psychology

    C8, L7

  44. Where no cost centre information was available the price groups were defined in terms of the HESA subject codes given in the table below:

    Price group

    HESA subject code

    A

    A2, A3, A4, D1

    B

    A1, B1 – B5, C1 – C7, C9, D2 – D9, F1 – F3, F5 – F7, F9,G5, H, J, N9, Y1

    C

    B7 – B9, F4, F8, G (excluding G5), K, L5, L8, N7, N8, P2, Q5 – Q7, Q9, R3, R5 – R8, T1 – T8, V6, W

    D

    B6, L1 – L4, L6, M, N1 – N6, P1, P3 – P6, Q1 – Q4, Q8, R1, R2, R4, T9, V1 – V5, V7 – V9, X, Y2 – Y6

    Psychology

    C8, L7

    ITT

    Any ITT course

    INSET- QTS

    Any student holding QTS on an INSET course

  45. Sandwich year-out and language year abroad students are allocated to a dummy cost centre (99) and so have their price group allocated using their subject information.
  46. For institutions making a student/module return to HESA, the cost centre information in the module portion of the return was used in the allocation of price groups. For those making a combined return, the cost centre fields 100 to 147 were used.

    Long and standard courses

  47. The length of courses was assigned using the general qualification aim QUALAIM as follows:

    a. Long course codes: 02 to 05, (19 and YEARPRG >=3).

    b. Standard course codes: 06 to 08, 10, 12 to14, (19 and YEARPRG<3), 20 to 32, 41 to 45, 61 and 62.

    Allocation to fee bands and source of tuition fee

  48. As described in the HESES97 document the source of tuition fees was determined by:

    English or Welsh LEA

    MSTUFEE (Field 68) = 2

    SAAS / DENI

    MSTUFEE (Field 68) = 3, 4

    Other

    Any not included above

  49. The fee level was determined by:

    Band 1

    Full-time and sandwich

    FEEBAND (Field 67) = 11

    Part-time and sandwich year-out

    FEEBAND (Field 67) = 12

    Band 2

    Full-time and sandwich

    FEEBAND (Field 67) = 21

    Part-time and sandwich year-out

    FEEBAND (Field 67) = 22

    Band 3

    Full-time and sandwich

    FEEBAND (Field 67) = 31

    Part-time and sandwich year-out

    FEEBAND (Field 67) = 32

    Postgraduate

    (Postgraduate students only)

    Full-time and sandwich

    FEEBAND (Field 67) = 41

    Part-time and sandwich year-out

    FEEBAND (Field 67) = 42

    Other

    Any not included above

    Part-time assumed load

  50. This is column 4a of table 3a in HESES 1997-98; it is calculated from STULOAD (Field 74). Where the FTE is returned to HESA as split proportionally across the two academic years spanned by a year of programme of study, the calculation is complex. The method used will be available on request. For the three other methods of reporting FTEs to HESA, the STULOAD of those students on countable years of programme of study was used.

    Additional data derived from HESA

    Franchised-out students

  51. The TINST data returned to HESA were used to create the franchised-out student tables. The tables give information on HESES column 4 students only. Up to two franchisee colleges are listed together, as no students are franchised out to more than two colleges. One table gives the numbers of franchised-out students, while the other gives the FTEs franchised (STULOAD (Field 74) *PCOLAB (Field 90)).

    Count of mature entrants

  52. Undergraduate full-time home and EC fundable students included in the HESES 1997-98 column 4 population were counted as mature students using a comparison of COMDATE (Field 26) and BIRTHDTE (Field 10). Mature students must be aged 25 or older on COMDATE.

    Count of thin sandwich students

  53. A count of home and EC full-time undergraduates in their third year of programme of study, whose placement causes a continuous absence of less than an academic year. These thin sandwich students must have more than one such placement during their course. This information is needed to enable us to calculate the fee compensation pertaining to these students. We provide fee compensation for all these students whether they are fundable or non-fundable. Third year thin sandwich students are those with MODE (Field 70) = 22 and YEARPRG (Field 72) = 3. All the students allocated to columns 1 and 2 of HESES97 by the comparison program were included in the count, provided the main source of their fees was from DENI, an LEA or SAAS.

    Counts of young students in neighbourhood types

  54. We enclose a table showing the number of young, English domiciled, home and EC fundable full-time undergraduate students in each of 40 neighbourhood types. An unclassified category is included because it was not always possible to determine the neighbourhood type. Students are ‘young’ if they are under 25 on entry; this is calculated using COMDATE (Field 26) and BIRTHDTE (Field 10). For a description of the allocation of postcodes (POSTCODE Field 75) to the neighbourhood type please see ‘The Influence of Neighbourhood Type on Participation in Higher Education’ (HEFCE, April 1997).

    Count of home and EC fundable full-time undergraduate students

  55. This is provided in order that the percentage of mature students and the percentage of students in each neighbourhood type can be calculated.