Methodology

Participation measures in higher education

• Published: 27 February 2025

Background

The Cohort-based Higher Education Participation (CHEP) measure

The Cohort-based Higher Education Participation (CHEP) measure is used to monitor Higher Education (HE) participation by school cohorts. It calculates the proportion of the population aiming to complete a qualification at HE level.

Cohorts of 15-year-olds from English state and special schools are monitored through time to create a percentage of those who choose to participate in HE. This participation rate helps us to understand how the proportion of the population participating in higher education is impacted by changes in the economic, social and policy environment.

The CHEP measure was published for the first time in January 2023 and referenced the 2020/21 academic year.

CHEP replaced the Higher Education Initial Participation (HEIP) measure, which had been published by the Department for Education (and former Departments) since 2004.  

Feedback 

We are currently reviewing this publication and we welcome feedback from users at he.statistics@education.gov.uk. 

Methodology and coverage

The Cohort-based Higher Education Participation (CHEP) measure estimates the proportion of the population aiming to complete a qualification at Higher Education level.

The denominator used for the CHEP measure is pupils who attended state schools and all special schools (including non-maintained special schools) in England at age 15 as recorded in the School Census. The numerator is calculated by identifying pupils who progressed to UK Higher Education (Levels 4 and above (opens in a new tab)) in the years following their schooling.

The measures are calculated using matched data. This matches the National Pupil Database (NPD) to the Individualised Learner Record (opens in a new tab) (ILR), the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) Student Record and from 2014/15 to 2021/22, the HESA Alternative Provider Student Record. This allows pupils to be tracked from English schools at age 15 to HE at older ages.

The matched data relates to students who were aged 15 in the period 2001/02 to 2020/21, which allows us to track HE entry up to age 36 in the latest year (2022/23). 

The measures cover HE courses at UK Higher Education Providers, Alternative Providers and English Further Education Colleges. 

It must be noted, due to the matching procedures deployed, all figures in this publication should be treated as estimates and may include a small amount of double counting where pupils attend more than one school. Further details of the matching procedure can be found in the Matching process section below.

Independent schools

Pupils who attended independent schools are not currently included in the measure. The Department collects less detailed information on pupils who attend independent schools. This means that the figures are more sensitive to changes in the matching methodology over time than for state-funded schools which then affects the comparability of the figures.  We will keep monitoring the stability of the matched independent schools data in the future with a view to including them.

Higher Education

Pupils are deemed to have participated in Higher Education where they are:

• Recorded in HESA's Standard Registration Population (opens in a new tab), which requires a minimum of 2 weeks participation; or
• Recorded in the ILR college data as starting a learning aim at level 4 or higher that was either:
  1. Completed successfully
  2. Continuing into the following year
  3. Lasting over 6 months

Participation in HE at Alternative Providers has been included for students who started courses in 2014/15 or later.

Work-based learning, including apprenticeships, is not included in the measures.

16 year olds in Higher Education

Due to the small numbers involved, figures for students who entered HE at age 16 have been included in the figures but categorised as 17-year-olds.

Breakdowns

Statistics are provided for the following breakdowns:

Age

Age relates to the age at the start of the academic year. Figures are provided for individual ages and are also grouped to show HE entry by age 20, 25 and 30. The main focus of the publication is HE entry by age 25 as this provides a balance between the timeliness of the measure and the peak participation in HE.

Gender

Gender is recorded as male or female in the School Census. Gender is self-declared and recorded according to the wishes of the parent and/or pupil.

Region

Region is based on the location of the school that the pupil attended at age 15. The location of the school is determined by the Local Authority (LA) it reports to. In some cases, pupils may have lived in a different area to the one they have been reported in, including some pupils attending schools in England who lived in Wales or Scotland.

Mode

Mode of study refers to whether a student has undertaken full-time or part-time higher education.

Level

Level of study refers to the qualification that the individual was aiming to achieve when they set out in their studies.

What qualification levels mean: England, Wales and Northern Ireland - GOV.UK (opens in a new tab)
 

Matching process

The National Pupil Database (NPD) contains administrative data on all pupils in schools in England, collected by the Department for Education. School Census records were matched to the Higher Education Statistics Agency’s (HESA) Student Record and Alternative Provider Student Record, and the Individualised Learner Record (ILR).

The match achieved is called a “fuzzy match” where we rely on information such as names, postcodes and dates of birth to identify school pupils that also appear in the HESA or ILR data. This allows us to track school pupils that have progressed into Higher Education. 

There is some potential for minor errors in the matching process. For this reason, the figures are deemed estimates due to the reliability of the matching procedure used. Match quality and match rates will change over time as new data is added and improved methodologies applied. See the Limitations section below for more information.

Changes in the latest release (2022/23)

HESA Data Futures

In the 2022/23 academic year, Jisc (the designated data body responsible for the HESA Student record) introduced a number of changes impacting the Student Record collection and data. Jisc introduced a new collection system, the HESA Data Platform (HDP), and a new data model (Data Futures), designed to meet the needs of the current funding and regulatory landscape.

Prior to the 2022/23 academic year, details on students in alternative providers were held in the Student Alternative Record, separately to the majority of students captured in the Student Record.

In regular cycles, the HESA Student Record is available in the January following the end of the academic year. However, data for 2022/23 was delayed as a result of complexity in implementing the new data model and data collection systems across the UK higher education sector. The 2022/23 Student Record was published in August 2024, delayed from the usual January publishing timeframe. Further information can be found on the HESA website (opens in a new tab).

Overall, we are confident that the transition to the new collection model has had a minimal impact on the robustness of the CHEP-25 rates.

Changes to matching methodology in 2024

The methodology used to match the National Pupil Database (NPD) to the Higher Education Statistics Agency’s (HESA) Student Record and the Individualised Learner Record (ILR) was revised in 2024. Entrants to Higher Education in 2022/23 are the first to be matched to the NPD data using this new methodology.

The methodology still involves a “fuzzy match” and while every effort has been made to have consistency with the match carried out in previous years, it is likely that the change in matching has had some impact on outputs. We believe any impact on the numbers in this publication is very small but it may affect comparisons between the 2012/13 cohort of 15-year-olds and earlier cohorts for small groups in particular.

Limitations

The CHEP measure provides a generally consistent time series, however there are some factors that will impact on this.

Although the school census provides a largely stable population base, it is not an estimate of the population of 15-year-olds. Changes in the number of pupils who are home-schooled or who attended independent schools will have an impact on the comparability of the figures over time. The 2020/21 cohort of 15-year-olds may have seen an increase in the number of those being home-schooled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

These figures do not include participation in HE in colleges in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland or any HE outside the UK and so will not provide a complete picture of participation in HE.

Changes to matching methodologies

The publication relies on “fuzzy matching” which matches data based on the personal details collected in each dataset. Match quality and match rates will change over time as new data is added and improved methodologies applied.

These changes will impact the figures for the percentage of pupils entering HE presented in this publication. Calculations involve a very long run of data dating back to 2001/02. If the match rate increases due to methodological changes this could result in an increased CHEP rate even if there has been no behavioural change in terms of participating in HE. 

The match quality and rate are likely to be more volatile for pupils where fewer personal details are known such as for pupils who attended independent schools and pupils who have lived outside England or changed address between compulsory schooling and prior to entering HE (which is more likely to be the case for older students). We therefore chose to exclude independent school pupils from the coverage of this release.

Our analysis suggests that there are specific years that are more affected by changes in the matching than others:

• The match to HESA data did not include 16 and 17-year-olds prior to 2014/15
• The filters used to remove under 18s from the HESA data in 2008/09 were incorrectly applied, which led to a small number of 17-year-olds being matched and some 18-year-olds not being included in the match in that year. For 18-year-olds this is likely to have reduced the number being matched by up to around 10%, although the vast majority will have participated in HE at age 19 in 2009/10 and so the impact on cohort measures will be limited. This is evident in the unusually low participation rate by age 18 for the 2005/06 cohort of 15-year-olds. For 17-year-olds the numbers are very small and so the key measures used are not affected, however it has caused a large proportional increase in the number entering HE at age 17 in 2008/09.  
• Changes in the matching methodology in 2018 have led to an increase in the number of HE entrants that matched to a school census record for HE entry from 2017/18 onwards where they were categorised in their HE records as not being domiciled in England immediately prior to study. We believe the numbers involved are relatively small but will have some impact on comparisons between figures looking at HE entry in 2016/17 and later years. 
• The matching methodology was revised again in 2024. Every effort has been made to have consistency with the match carried out in previous years, however it is likely that the change in matching has had some impact on outputs. We believe any impact on the numbers in this publication is very small but it may affect comparisons between the 2012/13 cohort of 15-year-olds and earlier cohorts for small groups in particular.

Difference from previous HEIP measure

The ‘cohort’ measure

The Cohort-based Higher Education Participation (CHEP) measure was published for the first time in January 2023 and referenced the 2020/21 academic year. The CHEP measure tracks a 15-year-old school cohort over time until they participate in Higher Education.

The previous ‘projected’ measure

The previous measure summed together age-specific initial entry rates recorded in the latest year to estimate a Higher Education Initial Participation (HEIP) rate. This estimate was described as a projection of the likelihood that a 17-year-old would participate in higher education by age 30 if current participation levels persisted into the future.

The denominator for the previous measure used mid-year population estimates published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) which had been adjusted to an academic year basis, rather than a 15-year-old school cohort.

More details on the HEIP methodology can be found in the following link:

Participation Rates in Higher Education: 2006 to 2018 - GOV.UK (opens in a new tab)

Why transition to the CHEP methodology?

HEIP produced a timely measure but with some known limitations:

• When there is steady growth in entry rates for younger age groups (as has been observed over many years for English 18-year-olds (opens in a new tab)), the HEIP method of summing current participation rates will estimate a higher participation rate than the real 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.
• It was not possible to create reliable figures broken down by region and key demographics using the projection methodology.

Since passing the milestone of 50% participation in the 2018/19 publication, the Department asked for feedback on whether the HEIP measure remained relevant and was still necessary to users. This included opportunity for comment on how users would be impacted if methodological changes were made to the series. 

The decision was taken to retain a higher education participation statistical series, but from the 2020/21 academic year onwards, the headline measures would be developed from tracking cohorts of school pupils rather than relying on population estimates.

As these participation rates are based on tracking a clearly defined school cohort, it lessens the impact of both inward and outward migration flows over time resulting in a more stable base population. It is also not affected by revisions to ONS population estimates that occur following each Census.

Additionally, using the cohort-based approach means we can analyse participation by pupil characteristics taken from the school census, including breakdowns by specific ages, gender, and region of school attended. Under the previous method it was not possible to create reliable figures by region.

Help and support

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If you have a specific enquiry about Participation measures in higher education statistics and data:

HE Participation and Provider Statistics Team

Email: he.statistics@education.gov.uk
Contact name: Louis Erritt

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