Why the ‘Undecideds’ should be your new focus
The picture in numbers
At a topline level, University still attracts and converts a substantial proportion of UK sixth formers. UCAS data1 shows 316,850 UK 18-year-olds have applied to University or college in 2024. This puts the application rate for UK 18-year-olds at 41.3%, down from 41.5% in 2023, but up from 38.2% in 2019.
However, the picture is more nuanced when we dig into the details. Application figures show significant regional disparities which seem to reflect the disproportionate impact of the cost of living crisis across the UK. The UCAS figures show that Wales has the lowest proportion of 18 year-olds applying for University in the UK at only 32%1.
Access to Higher Education remains stubbornly unequal with data from Into University5 showing a gap of 45% between the most and least advantaged groups.
Havas’ 2024 report The Focused Generation2 reports that 68% of prospective university students were considering an alternative pathway to an undergraduate degree. Their report singles out concerns around student debt and the affordability of three years’ study as the key factors influencing this indecision.
These data taken together with the qualitative evidence of countless media columns and social media posts suggests that the proportion deciding against University is only going to increase.
The attitudinal spectrum
Definitely Will Go:
The primary audience universities currently target, consisting of academically driven students who have long planned for higher education and generally have the familial support in place to back that decision. For them, the decision is simply what to study and where to go.
Definitely Won’t Go:
Those who see university as irrelevant to their aspirations or beyond their financial means.
The ‘Undecideds’:
These students may have aspirations for higher education but are unsure. This indecision may be fuelled by multiple factors including (but not limited to) cost of living and fear of debt. Alongside their consideration of where they might go, there are bigger considerations of whether to go at all.
Why this audience matters
A hyper-competitive approach focused purely on selling where to go to University risks ignoring the ‘Undecideds’. Engaging this group effectively could be the key to providing the marginal gains needed to meet recruitment targets. But beyond that, an understanding of the attitudes, beliefs and concerns of this group can help engage with the wider audience who, although they are convinced about University, are likely to be seeking some of the same reassurances to some extent.
Understanding the ‘Undecideds’
Our insights on this audience have been drawn from multiple sources including: