Introducing the Higher Education Initial Participation (HEIP) measure
This statistical publication presents the latest Higher Education Initial Participation (HEIP) measure. The HEIP has been published by DfE (and former Departments) since 2004, and the measure is the sum of the age specific participation rates for the 17 to 30 year-old population in England in each academic year. It can be thought of as a projection of the likelihood of a 17-year-old today participating in higher education by age 30 if the latest year's entry rates persisted in the future.
The HEIP was formerly known as the Higher Education Initial Participation Rate (HEIPR). The measure has been renamed this year following feedback from users about the validity of it being described as a rate. Further information is available in this communication from the Office for Statistics Regulation:
Future development of the participation measure
Since passing the milestone of 50% participation in higher education by the 17 to 30 year-old population, the continuing relevance of this National Statistic is being considered. DfE intends to actively contact users to understand their uses of the HEIP measure and if this series should continue in future.
Cohort measures
Initial participation in higher education by age 30 can be measured more precisely by tracking a cohort of school leavers over-time. A limitation with the cohort approach is that it takes 13 years to measure participation by age 30 of a 17-year-old today. The HEIP measure provides a more timely, but less precise, estimate of participation that includes mature students. In order to inform debate over the future of this National Statistics series, we have included a discussion paper on the advantages of measuring initial participation using a cohort approach in future.
If you wish to have a say on the future of the HEIP measure, please complete the questionnaire provided and email it to he.statistics@education.gov.uk by 21st January 2021. The discussion paper and questionnaire can be found under the tab “Download associated files” below.
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Introducing the Higher Education Initial Participation (HEIP) measure
This statistical publication presents the latest Higher Education Initial Participation (HEIP) measure. The HEIP has been published by DfE (and former Departments) since 2004, and the measure is the sum of the age specific entry rates for the 17 to 30 year old population in England in each academic year. It can be thought of as a projection of the likelihood of a 17-year-old today participating in higher education by age 30 if the latest year's entry rates persisted in the future.
The HEIP was formerly known as the Higher Education Initial Participation Rate (HEIPR). The measure has been renamed this year following feedback from users about the validity of it being described as a rate. Further information is available in this communication from the Office for Statistics Regulation:
Changes in coverage
The HEIP measure includes 17 to 30 year-old English domiciled first-time participants in higher education at UK higher education providers (HEPs), and at English, Welsh and Scottish Further Education Providers (FEPs).
The coverage of the HEIP measure has been boosted in this year's publication by the inclusion of initial participants registered at additional providers of higher education who have been returning data to the Higher Education Statistic Agency's (HESA) Alternative Provider (AP) record. This impacts the HEIP measure from 2014/15 onwards, and the Postgraduate Initial Participation (PGIP) measure from 2017/18 onwards.
The impact of the change in coverage is shown in the headline chart and table of the publication. In the remainder of the publication, figures are presented with a break in the series to make clear that figures prior to 2014/15 are on a different basis.
Limitations with the HEIP methodology
The HEIP National Statistic has been published by DfE (and former Departments) since 2004, and the measure is an estimate of the actual entry rate in the current year of people who had not previously entered higher education between the ages 17 and 30. For each age from 17 to 30, the initial participation rate is calculated as the fraction of the academic year population that are initial entrants. These rates are added to create the total HEIP measure. It is not a measure of participation by particular entry cohorts.
When there is steady growth in entry rates for younger age groups (as has been observed over many years for English 18 year-olds), the HEIP method of summing current participation rates will show a higher participation rate than the participation rate for a particular entry cohort. For example, today’s 30 year-olds, will have had a lower initial participation rate when they were aged 18 compared to today’s 18 year-olds.
A rough estimate of rates for particular entry cohorts can be constructed by summing the initial entry rates across academic years. For example, the 17 year-old entry rate in 2006/07, would be added to the 18 year old rate in 2007/08, and to the 19 year-old rate in 2008/09, and so on.
Future development of the participation measure and cohort measures
Since passing the milestone of 50% participation in higher education by the 17 to 30 year-old population, the continuing relevance of this National Statistic is being considered. DfE intends to actively contact users to understand their uses of the HEIP measure and if this series should continue in future.
Initial participation in higher education by age 30 can be measured more precisely by tracking a cohort of school leavers over-time. A limitation with the cohort approach is that it takes 13 years to measure participation by age 30 of a 17-year-old today. The HEIP measure provides a more timely, but less precise, estimate of participation that includes mature students. In order to inform debate over the future of this National Statistics series, we have included a discussion paper on the advantages of measuring initial participation using a cohort approach in future.
If you wish to have a say on the future of the HEIP measure, please complete the questionnaire provided and email it to he.statistics@education.gov.uk.
Historic data:
2006/07 was the first year for which data are available using the current HEIP methodology. Historic figures from 1999/00 have been included for reference in a supplementary downloadable file named "historic initial participation data 1999 to 2006 (old methodology)”. These figures are not comparable to those throughout this publication. Details of the methodological changes were reported in
Rounding
Initial participant counts have been rounded to the nearest five in line with the Higher Education Statistics Agency’s (HESA) rounding policy (opens in a new tab) . Calculated percentages have been rounded to one decimal place to inform comparisons over time. Rounding may result in slight inconsistencies between totals and sums of their constituent parts.
Revisions since last year
Due to ongoing methodological improvements in the estimation of the number of initial participants in Higher Education and updates to the underpinning data, the complete time series of participation is recalculated every year, and can result in small changes to the initial participant counts that feed into the age-specific rates.
More notably this year, the coverage of the HEIP measure has been boosted in this year's publication by the inclusion of initial participants registered at additional providers of higher education who have been returning data to the Higher Education Statistic Agency's (HESA) Alternative Provider (AP) record. This impacts the HEIP measure from 2014/15 onwards, and the Postgraduate Initial Participation (PGIP) measure from 2017/18 onwards. The impact of the change in coverage is shown in the headline chart and table of the publication. In the remainder of the publication figures are presented with a break in the series to make clear that figures prior to 2014/15 are on a different basis.
Revisions in future publications
Figures for 2018/19 are considered to be provisional due to the fact that the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) keep their collections open for between 6 and 15 months following the closure of the corresponding live data collection, so revisions to the initial participant counts are possible, but likely to be relatively minor. Population estimates can also be revised which can lead to updates to the measure.
As revisions and updates to the source data from HESA, the Office for Students (OfS), the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA), Scottish Funding Council (SFC), the Welsh Government; and the population estimates and projections from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the Government Actuary's Department are made available at different times during the year, any revisions to the provisional figures for 2018/19 will be included in any future publications.
Initial participation by age
Initial participation by sex
Initial participation by age and sex
Initial participation by mode of study
Initial participation by age and mode of study
Initial participation by qualification aim
Initial participation by provider type
Postgraduate participation
Postgraduate participation by sex
Postgraduate participation by mode of study
Other data sources
There are various other publications that provide estimated participation rates and show how these contribute to the skill levels of the working population in England.
UCAS Entry Rates
Although UCAS entry rates for 18-year-olds are higher than the equivalent initial participation rates reported in this publication, the percentage point growth is comparable to the HEIP measure for that age. The size of the estimates is different as UCAS measure the acceptance of a place, not physical participation on a course for at least 6 months, and there are other differences in coverage, with UCAS covering full-time undergraduate acceptances only.
The UCAS End of Cycle 2019 Report (opens in a new tab) shows that the entry rate to full-time higher education for English 18-year-olds rose from 33.3% in 2017/18 to 33.7% in 2018/19. The comparable full-time initial entry rate for 18-year-olds calculated as part of the HEIP measure was 28.9% in 2017/18 and 29.4% in 2018/19, a 0.5 percentage points increase.
The report also shows that in 2019/20 the UCAS entry rate to full-time higher education by 18-year-olds has increased further, to 35.0%, the highest rate ever recorded.
DfE’s Participation in education, training and employment: 2019
The Department for Education publishes national participation figures for education, training and employment (and NEET) for 16 to 18 year-olds. The latest publication refers to the position at the end of 2019 and is available at Participation in education, training and employment: 2019 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) (opens in a new tab).
Table 4a of that publication shows that the proportion of 18-year olds in full-time education rose to 51.5% at the end of 2019, up from 50.0% at the end of 2018, Almost two thirds of those in full-time education were studying higher education (level 4 and above).
OECD Estimates of Initial Entry to Tertiary-Level Education
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) publishes first time entry rates to tertiary education on an internationally comparable basis in their annual publication Education at a Glance (EAG). The reported UK participation rate in EAG 2020 (opens in a new tab) was 54% and referred to the academic year 2017/18. The average across OECD-reporting countries was 49%. This rate differs to the HEIP for 17 to 30 years-olds because:
Office for Students Young Participation Rates
Maps of young HE participation rates for local areas are published by the Office for Students at https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/data-and-analysis/polar-participation-of-local-areas/ (opens in a new tab)
Percentage of the population qualified to higher education level
The HEIP measure is a useful indicator of the percentage of the population that might qualify at higher education level.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) publishes statistics from the Annual Population Survey (APS) on the percentage of the population qualified to National Vocational Qualification (NVQ) levels 4 or above, which is equivalent to higher education level.
The percentage of the 25 to 29 population of England qualified to NVQ level 4 or above by calendar year is shown in the chart and table below.
The percentage of the population aged 25 to 29 qualified at level 4 or above is lower than the estimates provided by the HEIP measure; this is partly due to young people participating in higher education for six months but not completing their studies and obtaining a higher education qualification.
Alternative disaggregations of the APS are available at Dataset Selection - Query - Nomis - Official Labour Market Statistics (nomisweb.co.uk) (opens in a new tab).
Find out how and why we collect, process and publish these statistics.
These accredited official statistics have been independently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR). They comply with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics. Accredited official statistics are called National Statistics in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007.
Accreditation signifies their compliance with the authority's Code of Practice for Statistics which broadly means these statistics are:
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