Abstract

Around two and half million people attended a higher education institute (HEI) in the United Kingdom (UK) in the 2010/2011 academic year, which is around 4.1% of the total population. Surprisingly, given the importance of higher education very little work has been conducted on the migratory patterns of students attending HEIs in the UK. Neil Bailey puts forward a typology that can be used to categorise the different migration transitions that a person can undertake in order to attend a HEI. He uses the student migration typology and the Student Record Dataset of the Higher Educational Statistics Agency, which contains detailed information on every student recorded as attending a HEI in the UK, to illustrate the migratory patterns of those attending HEIs in the UK during the 2010/11 academic year with a focus on the local authority and county level geography. Using the typology of student migration at the local authority level, the data indicate that 37% of students were classed as student migrants, 9% were local students while 35% were classed as commuter/distance learners.

Neil Bailey is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Social Statistics and Demography at the University of Southampton.

Presentation slides (PDF 760KB)