Academic year 2021/22

Foundation year participation, provision and outcomes at HE providers

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Introduction

A foundation year is an additional year of study at the beginning of a higher education course that is designed to prepare students for undergraduate degree-level study. Students tend to study a foundation year if they did not meet the entry requirements and/or have the necessary skills or subject knowledge to gain direct access to the undergraduate course that the foundation year is integrated with.

A student may opt to study a foundation year if they: 

  • Studied different subjects at A-Level to the course entry requirements
  • Did not get the required grades for the course 
  • Have qualifications which are not accepted for a course

Foundation years offer a valuable pathway to Higher Education (HE), particularly for students from under-represented backgrounds, adult learners and those who do not have the combination of A level subjects needed for their desired course. Some foundation years, such as those in medicine and veterinary sciences, are important in ensuring students from under-represented groups can progress into these careers.

This additional year of study is not a standalone qualification but is used both to provide some broad subject knowledge, as well as to allow students to get used to HE and to gain wider skills needed for higher level study.

A foundation year is not the same as a foundation degree. A foundation year is integrated with an undergraduate course, whereas a foundation degree is a standalone qualification. 

On 17 July 2023, as part of its response to a consultation on Higher Education Reform (opens in a new tab), the Government announced that maximum fee and loan limits for foundation years in classroom-based subjects will be reduced to £5,760. The Government intends to deliver this change for the 2025/26 academic year. 

This statistics publication presents some of the key supporting data and evidence that the Department for Education considered alongside responses to its Higher Education Reform consultation (opens in a new tab), and research that was commissioned into the costs of foundation years from IFF Research (opens in a new tab).

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About this release

Introduction

This note contains supporting information for the statistical release ‘Foundation Years statistics', including further detail on the background of the publication and an overview of the data sources. For information on data processing and data quality of these statistics, please see the methodology section.

Background to the publication

This statistics publication presents an overview of foundation years provision, participation and outcomes at Higher Education Providers (HEPs), for UK domiciled learners in England in the academic year 2021/22, as well as some time series analysis dating back (in most cases) to 2010/11. 

Throughout this publication, foundation years refers to students in year 0 of their course. First year undergraduates refers to those in year 1 of their course. 

The statistics show how foundation years provision, participation and outcomes compare to those of comparable undergraduates. The coverage has focused on English HEPs and UK domiciled learners because this is the group most likely to be impacted by the Government's reforms.

Previous publications on foundation years

The OfS, HESA, and HEPI have all published analysis and research on foundation years, which can be found at the links below:

https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/publications/preparing-for-degree-study/ (opens in a new tab)

https://www.hesa.ac.uk/blog/16-05-2019/foundation-year-research (opens in a new tab)

https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2021/05/20/the-case-for-putting-foundation-years-on-more-stable-ground/ (opens in a new tab)

Figures may not match these publications due to differences in the way data on foundation years has been filtered and analysed.

Other related statistical releases

Statistics on students at higher education providers are published by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), and are available through HESA’s Student Open Data pages: https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/students (opens in a new tab)

HESA does not report data on foundation years students separately, but are instead included within figures reflecting ‘first year first degree undergraduate students’. This new analysis breaks down this data to separate out foundation years. Counts of foundation year entrants and enrolments have also been restricted to exclude those domiciled in Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man.

Statistics on graduate outcomes are published by HESA at: https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/graduates (opens in a new tab) 

Median earnings of graduates and the proportion of graduates going onto employment or further study by subject studied are extracted from the Department for Education's Longitudinal Education Outcomes (LEO) database.

Data sources

The publication presents analysis of the HE sector sourced from the Higher Education Statistics Agency’s (HESA) ‘Student’ and ‘Student Alternative’ records for HEPs.

The HESA ‘Student’ and ‘Student Alternative’ records collect information on all students at higher education providers in England who follow courses that lead to the award of a qualification or provider credit. The data collections include the following information about students:

•Personal characteristics

•Place of study

•Courses and modules they are undertaking

•Entry qualifications and socio-economic backgrounds

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Foundation years participation

Key statistic:

  • Foundation year entrants have increased by over 60,000 from 2011/12 (8,470) to 2021/22 (69,325), representing a percentage change of over 700% since 2011/12.

Table 1 shows the year-on-year growth of foundation year entrants since 2011/12 has been consistently higher than that of first year undergraduate entrants, rising by an average of more than 20% per annum. By comparison, first year undergraduates have grown by an average of 2%. 

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Number of available foundation years

Key statistic:

  • There were 3,717 foundation years available in 2021/22. This is over 2,000 more than the 678 foundation years available in 2010/11 representing an increase of over 400% since 2010/11. 

Figure 2 shows that, since 2014, the number of foundation years available has been steadily increasing, with the number of foundation years having more than doubled between 2016/17 and 2021/22, from 1,834 to 3,717. Before 2014/15, the number of foundation years was largely stable, with the total number remaining at around 700 between 2010/11 and 2013/14. This was largely due to the student number caps that were in place during this period. The end to student number caps coincides with the large increase in foundation years that occurred in 2015/16.

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Foundation year providers

Key statistics: 

  • In total, there were 105 English providers of foundation years in 2021/22. 
  • 23 of these providers were based in London, the most of any region across England, followed by the South East of England (16). 
  • 42 of the 105 providers (40%) had a low or unknown tariff in 2021/22, the highest percentage across all OfS provider typologies.

Footnotes 

  1. In this section, and across the whole publication, we refer to English providers only.
  2. For detailed information on how provider tariffs are defined please see this link: Provider typologies 2022 - Methodology for grouping OfS-registered providers (officeforstudents.org.uk) (opens in a new tab)

Figure 3 shows that the number of providers offering foundation years has almost doubled between 2010/11 and 2021/22. This suggests that the growth in foundation years numbers shown above is partly due to more providers offering foundation years over time. This steady growth in the number of providers offering foundation years brings benefits to students by widening the choices available to them in terms of provider type, location, and subject variety.

Table 2 shows that between 2010/11 and 2021/22, London and the South East had the greatest number of foundation year providers.  In comparison, the lowest number of foundation year providers was found in the North East and the East of England.

Figure 4 shows that, over the period shown, foundation year provision has been most concentrated at providers categorised as medium and low or unknown tariff, with 70% of total foundation year provision delivered by these providers in 2021/22. While there has been growth in foundation year provision across all tariff groups over time, growth in provision has been greatest among Specialist: Other and providers with no typology.

As a result, the proportion of providers offering foundation years who are categorised as high tariff has reduced from 22% to 15% of total provision over the period 2010/11 – 2021/22.

In 2021/22, the majority of foundation year entrants (73%) studied at low or unknown tariff providers, compared to 4% who studied at high tariff providers (Figure 5).

When comparing foundation year entrants with comparable first year undergraduate entrants, a much lower proportion are studying at high and medium tariff institutions, with only 23% of foundation year entrants studying at these providers compared to 61% of first year undergraduates.

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Foundation year student characteristics

Key statistics:

64% of foundation year entrants were aged 21 and above in 2021/22, compared to 19% of first year undergraduates in the same academic year. 

After excluding those recorded as “not in the standard tariff population”, the prior attainment of those who undertook a foundation year was lower than for first year undergraduates.

Across both foundation year and first year undergraduates, the majority of students enter HE with their highest qualification at Level 3, including A levels and Highers, but this proportion is much higher for first year undergraduates (56% and 91% respectively).

Figure 6 shows that in 2021/22, the majority of foundation year students (54%) identified as White, followed by 14% who identified as Asian and the same proportion who identified as Black.

In 2021/22,  the proportion of non-white entrants was significantly higher among foundation year entrants (46%) than among first year undergraduate entrants (34%).

Figure 7 shows that, in contrast to the first year undergraduate population, the majority of foundation year entrants (64%) in 2021/22 were mature students (aged 21 and over).

Figure 8 shows that, while the majority of the first year undergraduate entrants population was female (58%), gender was much more evenly split among foundation year entrants.

Figure 9 shows the proportion of foundation year entrants with at least one known disability in 2021/22 was slightly lower than the proportion among comparable first year undergraduates (11% compared to 18%).

POLAR (Participation of Local Areas) classifies local areas into five groups - or quintiles - based on the proportion of young people who enter higher education at age 18 or 19.

POLAR Quintile 1 (Q1) reflects the areas with the lowest rates of participation in HE, while Q5 shows the highest rate of participation in HE. POLAR can therefore be used as a measurement of disadvantage, by showing the extent to which a local area influences the likelihood of attending HE.

Figure 10 shows foundation years have proportionally more entrants from POLAR quintiles 4 and 5 (least disadvantaged) than from POLAR quintile 1 (most disadvantaged).

Table 3 shows that across both foundation year and first year undergraduates, the majority of students enter HE with their highest qualification at Level 3, including A levels and Highers (56% and 91% respectively).

Table 4 shows that the majority of students (58%) entering HE through a foundation year do not have prior attainment in the standard tariff population. By comparison, only 15% of first year undergraduates entering HE are in this category.

After excluding entrants recorded as “not in the standard tariff population”, the prior attainment of those who undertook a foundation year was lower than for first year undergraduates. This emphasises the role that foundation years can play as an entry route into HE for those who may not have the necessary prior attainment to enter  year 1 directly. 

Note: not in the standard tariff population refers to those with qualifications including and above level 4.

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Foundation year subjects studied

The following section breaks down the subjects studied by those undertaking foundation years. 

To note: There have been two ways of classifying subjects and the data is broken down by these classification methods to ensure comparability.  JACS (Joint Academic Coding System) is the first of these classification methods, and was a subject coding system used to classify academic subjects and modules until 2018/19. This was replaced by the Common Aggregation Hierarchy in (CAH) 2019/20.

Key statistics:

From 2015/16 to 2018/19, the JACS subject areas which saw the largest increases in foundation year entrants were business and administrative studies, social sciences and biological sciences. 

From 2019/20 to 2021/22, the CAH subject area which saw the largest increase in foundation year entrant numbers was business and management. 

In 2021/22, 51% of all foundation year entrants studied business and management,  compared to 13% of comparable first year undergraduates.

Over half (59%) of foundation year entrants are studying subjects defined as classroom-based, compared to 37% of first year undergraduates.

We used Office for Students (OfS) price groups to identify classroom-based provision. By “classroom-based foundation years provision” we mean subjects currently in OfS Price Group D (as of July 2023).

The OfS Price Groups organise HE subjects into six broad groups based on their teaching costs and strategic priority. Price Group A reflects subjects which are the most expensive to run (e.g. the clinical years of study for medicine), while Price Group D reflects subjects which are the least expensive to run (e.g. classroom based subjects such as humanities, business or social sciences). 

Figure 11 shows that over half (59%) of foundation year entrants are studying subjects which are the least expensive to run (OfS Price Group D), compared to 37% of first year undergraduates.

A similar proportion of entrants are studying higher cost subjects (OfS Price Group B) across foundation years (16%) and first year undergraduates (20%).

Figure 12 shows that a smaller proportion of foundation year entrants are studying science-based subjects compared to entrant in the first year of their undergraduate course (28% compared to 47%).

Table 5 shows whilst there has been growth in foundation year provision across all JACS subject groups from 2015/16 to 2018/19, the subject areas which have seen the highest growth in terms of entrants are business and administrative studies, social studies and biological sciences.

Table 6 shows the subjects which saw the largest growth in the number of foundation year entrants between 2015/16 and 2019/20 were law, subjects allied to medicine, and business and administrative studies. The growth rates of these subjects were 33%, 31% and 26% respectively. However, the growth in law and subjects allied to medicine have been from a much lower base relative to business and administrative studies.

Engineering and technology was the only subject area which recorded a drop in foundation year entrants, with numbers contracting by 2% over the period.

Table 7 shows that from 2019/20 through to 2021/22 business and management have seen the largest increase in entrants at 21,955, continuing the trend of strong growth recorded between 2015/16 and 2018/19.

Table 8 shows that business and management studies saw a 38% growth in entrants across the three academic years spanning 2019/20 to 2021/22. This was the largest growth across all subject areas and from a much higher base (see Table 7 above).

Table 9 shows that around half of foundation year entrants (51%) were studying business and management. This compared to only 13% for first year undergraduates.

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Foundation year outcomes

To note: non foundation year students are defined as undergraduate students who did not undertake a foundation year.

Key statistics:

53% of entrants who started in HE with a foundation year completed within 6 years in the academic year 2021/22. By comparison, 80% of entrants who started in HE in year 1 completed their qualification within 5 years. 

Foundation year students studying at high tariff and medium tariff providers saw the highest percentage of graduates in employment or further study (90%). Non foundation year students saw the highest percentage of graduates in employment or further study at medium tariff providers (91%).

The average salary for a foundation year graduate five years after graduation was £24,500, which was lower than that of comparable undergraduates, who had an average salary of £28,200 five years after graduation (LEO data, tax year 2019/20). 

To note: outcomes data is inherently very lagged because it looks at the outcomes of students 1 to 5 years after graduation. In the case of foundation year students, this means a minimum of 5 to 9 years after starting their undergraduate degree.

Figure 13 shows that 53% of students who started in HE with a foundation year qualified within 6 Years in the academic year 2021/22. By comparison, 80% of students who started in HE in year 1 completed their qualification within 5 years. 

Table 10 shows that, when comparing foundation year entrants and those who entered HE in year 1, completion rates are highest among foundation year entrants studying at specialist (creative) tariff providers (65%), whilst completion rates are highest for first year undergraduate students at high tariff providers (88%). 

Table 11 shows that completion rates among students who entered HE with a foundation year were highest among those studying history and philosophical studies, and medicine and dentistry. By comparison, among students who entered in year 1, completion rates were highest among entrants studying medicine and dentistry, and veterinary science.

Figure 14 shows foundation year students studying at high tariff and medium tariff providers saw the highest percentage of graduates in employment or further study (91%). Non foundation year students saw the highest percentage of graduates in employment or further study at high and medium tariff providers and (90%).

Figure 15 shows that both foundation year and non foundation year students studying at high tariff providers saw the highest percentage of employed graduates in high-skilled employment (79% and 84% respectively).

Table 12 shows that foundation year students who achieved between AAA and A*A*A* experienced a higher percentage of employment or further study (83%) compared to those who had below this level of prior attainment. 

All foundation year graduates saw a lower proportion in employment or further study compared to those with the same level of prior attainment who did not undertake a foundation year.

Foundation year students who achieved between BBB and CCC on entry experienced a higher percentage of employment in highly skilled work than equivalent students who entered HE in year 1.

Figure 16 shows that employment outcomes for foundation year students are broadly comparable with non foundation year students across all POLAR groups. Among foundation year students specifically, employment outcomes are highest for POLAR 2 and lowest for POLAR 4

Figure 17 shows that both foundation year and non-foundation year students from the most advantaged background (POLAR Q5) saw the highest percentage of employed graduates in highly skilled employment (69% and 80% respectively).

Table 13 shows that amongst both groups of students, the percentage of graduates in employment or further study, and the percentage of employed graduates in highly skilled employment was highest among those with more advantaged socio-economic backgrounds. 

Foundation year students with socio-economic classifications of “Never worked & long-term unemployed” and “Small employers & own account workers” saw a percentage of employed graduates in highly skilled employment which was higher than comparable students who did not undertake a foundation year.

Table 14 shows that across foundation year students, those studying veterinary sciences saw the highest percentage of graduates in employment or further study (96%), for non-foundation year students this proportion was highest for those studying medicine and dentistry (97%). 

Foundation year students who studied mathematical sciences, geography, earth and environmental studies, agriculture, food and related studies, and law saw a higher percentage of graduates in employment or further study compared to students who did not undertake a foundation year.

Figure 18 shows that the percentage of graduates in employment or further study by degree classification is broadly similar across both foundation year graduates and non foundation years graduates.

Figure 19 shows that the percentage of graduates in highly skilled employment is lower for foundation year graduates than for non foundation year graduates across all degree classifications.

Table 15 shows that for most subjects, non foundation year graduates had higher median earnings than foundation year graduates. Overall, median earnings for foundation year 5 years after graduation was £3,700 lower than those who did not complete a foundation year, earning £24,500 compared to £28,200

Five years after graduation, subjects that had higher median earnings for graduates that completed a foundation year were architecture, building and planning, engineering and technology and medicine and dentistry. 

Overall, the proportion of graduates in sustained employment, further study or both 5 years after graduation was 1.3 percentage points lower for those who completed a foundation year compared to those who did not.

The subject that had the highest proportion of foundation year graduates in sustained employment, further study or both five years after graduation was nursing and midwifery, with 100% of graduates in sustained employment, further study or both, compared to 93% of graduates who did not undertake a foundation year.

 

To note: the employment outcomes data in Table 15 was extracted from the Department for Education's LEO database. As such, it may differ from the above figures extracted from HESA Graduate Outcome survey.

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Find out more about the standards we follow to produce these statistics through our Standards for official statistics published by DfE guidance.

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