Shropshire falls behind in university stakes

Nationally, the amount of young people applying to go into higher education has reached 36.6 per cent, but across areas of Shropshire figures are below the average.

By constituency, the closest to the benchmark for this January's applications is Wrekin, where 34.8 per cent of young people are applying for university. But the figure for neighbouring Telford is just 27.5 per cent of according to the figures released by Ucas.

Shrewsbury and Atcham and North Shropshire have a rate of 30.5 per cent and 30.4 per cent respectively, while Ludlow has 33.7 per cent and Montgomeryshire 34.8 per cent.

In the past 10 years the national average percentage of young people applying to university has boomed from 27.2 per cent in 2006.

Ucas chief executive Mary Curnock Cook welcomed the figures as an "eye-catching" increase with "improving rates of progression."

Ludlow MP Philip Dunne also welcomed the national figures saying it was evidence Government reforms were going in the right direction.

"A record level of 18 year olds applying to university is good news for Shropshire, not least because growing demand will help the new University Centre in Shrewsbury," he said.

He said the figures also revealed the proportion of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds has increased to a record 22 per cent, up from just over 15 per cent in 2009 to 2010.

"This Government is determined to encourage aspiration in young people in Britain, no matter their background," he said.

But Andy Boddington, a Shropshire councillor in Mr Dunne's constituency said a closer look at the Shropshire figures were not so encouraging.

"All of Shropshire is falling behind the rest of England in university admissions," he said. "We would have more than 200 extra students applying to go to university every year if we met the national average."

He said 10 years ago Ludlow had 2.6 per cent more applications than the national average with only 181 constituencies doing better. Now it had almost three per cent fewer then average with 301 constituencies beating it for applications, he said.

"There are about 1,000 18 year-old people in the Ludlow constituency. The number of 18 year-olds applying to university has fallen by 5.5 per cent. That means that 55 young people are not now getting the educational opportunities they would have got in 2006. Even if we just stepped up to the national average, we'd have an extra 29 young people in higher education," he said.