Record university intake as Trott renews “dead-end degrees” warning

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Shadow education secretary Laura Trott has used the publication of this year’s A-level results to repeat her call for fewer school leavers to be pushed towards university, arguing that not every degree offers good value and that many graduates end up with heavy debt and poor job prospects.

Writing for the Telegraph, she recalled the anxiety of opening her own results and wished this year’s students luck, before turning to what she sees as a deeper problem with education policy.

She said students are too often being “sold a pup,” with limited teaching contact and weak career outcomes despite the cost, and pointed to Institute for Fiscal Studies analysis suggesting a quarter of graduates would have been financially better off had they never gone to university at all.

Trott also renewed her criticism of the new Education Secretary’s comments about there having been an “over-focus on academic outcomes,” arguing that emphasis on core subjects under the last Conservative government helped raise standards and narrow the attainment gap, particularly for children from poorer backgrounds. She contrasted this with what she described as a collapse in standards under the previous Labour government, when she said the number of pupils sitting core academic subjects halved and the UK slid down international league tables. She also directly rejected the position of Lucy Powell, who has said she does not want to reduce the number of young people going to university, calling that “the wrong approach.”

Trott’s proposed alternative, badged a “New Deal for Young People,” would scrap courses she considers poor value, double the number of apprenticeships, and cap interest on Plan 2 student loans at the RPI inflation rate. She argued that apprenticeships already generate demand that often exceeds applications to Oxbridge, but that supply has failed to keep pace, and called for businesses to be given more freedom to create jobs and opportunities for young people. The policy would be funded partly by cutting 100,000 university places on courses with weak employment records. Fellow Conservative Neil O’Brien, the shadow minister for policy development, argued that young people are currently getting “a raw deal,” leaving university saddled with debt and struggling to find good jobs, and said the party’s plan would “scrap real interest on student loans, ditch debt trap degrees, double apprenticeships and create genuine opportunities for young people to thrive.”

Against that backdrop, admissions body Ucas confirmed on Thursday that a record number of students have secured university places this year. More than 262,820 domestic students across England, Wales and Northern Ireland were accepted onto courses, up three per cent on last year’s 255,130, while 228,990 eighteen-year-olds got into their first-choice institution, a one per cent rise on the 226,580 recorded last year. Ucas chief executive Jo Saxton attributed part of the rise to the resilience of a cohort that began secondary school just as the pandemic disrupted their education, saying it was “wonderful” to see so many young people backing themselves and choosing to invest in their education despite that disruption. Separately, The Sunday Times has reported that elite universities are becoming more flexible towards students who miss their offer grades or apply through clearing, as institutions try to plug the financial gap left by a decline in high-paying international postgraduate applications.

Separately, analysis of Higher Education Statistics Agency data shows a continuing rise in the number of first-year students opting to live at home rather than in university halls, a trend driven largely by cost-of-living pressures and worries about student debt. In the 2024-25 academic year, 23.7 per cent of first-years lived with parents or guardians, the highest figure outside the pandemic years, when 456,735 students were forced to stay at home, and up from 20.7 per cent a decade earlier. In total, 450,865 full-time higher education students were living in their parental home during term-time in 2024-25. Eleven public universities now have at least half their new intake living at home, compared with six a decade ago, with Glasgow Caledonian recording the highest proportion at 66.6 per cent, followed by Bradford at 62.5 per cent and Brunel at 61.9 per cent. Regionally, Northern Ireland (34.9 per cent) and Scotland (33.1 per cent) had the highest shares of first-years living at home, while within England, London led at 33.1 per cent, up from 30 per cent a decade ago as living costs in the capital have risen.

Ucas figures published in January point in the same direction, showing that 44.6 per cent of UK eighteen-year-olds had made at least one university choice on the basis that they would live at home, up from 43.2 per cent the previous year, while 31 per cent of last year’s school leavers who secured a place said they intended to live at home, up from 30 per cent in 2024. Saxton said this “does relate to financial considerations,” adding that cost of living is now applicants’ number one concern, particularly whether they will have enough money to live on while they study.

Universities UK chief executive Vivienne Stern said the shift means institutions need to adapt so that students who commute still feel part of a university community, telling the Telegraph that more students will choose to study close to home and that the sector needs “a good spread of opportunity near to where you are.” She said she has spoken to student unions who are rethinking the timing of events so they remain accessible to students who need to catch a bus home by 6pm, adding that maintaining “that sense of belonging to a university community is surprisingly important.”

Elsewhere, the Conservatives have pressed Andy Burnham to cap student loan repayments in line with inflation. Party leader Kemi Badenoch has pledged to scrap real interest charges on Plan 2 loans and cap the rate at RPI inflation, currently three per cent, arguing that the loans, taken out by students who attended university between 2012 and 2023, increasingly feel “like a scam.”

Worth reading in full: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/08/12/a-level-students-to-shun-university-halls-as-costs-soar/