An interesting study of recent trends in UK university course choice reveals many surprising and less surprising elements:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-32230793
Less surprising -
The work carried out to encourage more students into the hard sciences, probably linked to more general economic realities, appears to have caused the increase of 50% in Chemistry and Physics applications. General engineering is up by 80%.
English (-10%) and Languages (-24%) have suffered.
The work put in to encouraging females into traditionally male dominated disciplines has also apparently paid off with a 25% increase for Engineering and 35% for Computing from female applicants.
More Surprising -
History has bounced back from an initial decline after tuition fees were raised and applications are now 4% higher than in 2012. A previous study of FTSE100 chief executives showed that more had a History degree than any other. So clearly the skills and interest developed here have commercial uses.
Other areas to contemplate:
Computing is now in the top 10 course choices with 75000+ applications per year. However it is one of the courses with the highest drop-out rates so caution must be exercised in making what might seem a sensible choice to some in the modern era.
Applications are at all-time highs despite the fee increase. However UCAS estimate that the figure would be even higher without, which seems to make fundamental economic sense. This does also suggest that demand for university degrees is currently highly price inelastic (or in other words there are not considered to be good substitutes for it) and that the loan system has addressed the affordability issue effectively.
It is encouraging that the young UK population is seeking to be more highly educated than previous generations. Something that is possible essential in the modern world.
