Fall in numbers of part time students may mean fewer disabled students in higher education

Statistics released last week show that the number of part time students in higher education continues to fall. Part time study is an option for people who find the logistics of physical or cognitive demands of full time attendance and full-on independent study exhausting, or overwhelming. A study by the NUS and OU in Wales in 2104 found that 22% of the students they surveyed were disabled people. That is a much higher proportion than the 5 – 10% often cited as a rule of thumb measure of the number of disabled students in UK universities as a whole. The fall has been noted by the Office of Fair Access. As reported in the Guardian, the fall in part time numbers will also mean a fall in the numbers of students who are 'traditionally underrepresented' in universities.