To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will take steps to require the Student Loan Company to undertake data-gathering on the (a) characteristics of and (b) reasons given by students who (i) withdraw or (ii) take an intermission from university, and to share that data with (a) universities and (b) Government agencies seeking to ensure that students do not face barriers to participation; and if she will make a statement.
Answered on
14 March 2023
The Student Loans Company (SLC) receives notifications of student withdrawal from higher education (HE) or study intermission from providers solely in order to determine whether fee and maintenance payments should be paid. This data is published here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/early-in-year-student-withdrawal-notifications-academic-year-201819-to-202223.
The department receives withdrawals data from the SLC for internal analysis purposes. This data identifies characteristics such as age, household income and living arrangements.
The government does not currently have plans to ask the SLC to collect other data about the withdrawal of students.
Authoritative data on students not continuing or completing their HE studies by person characteristics is published by the Office for Students in the ‘Student characteristics data: Outcomes data’ dashboard. This can be accessed here: https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/data-and-analysis/student-characteristics-data/outcomes-data-dashboard/.