Vince Cable, Business Secretary, spoke at Kingston University as the statistics were unveiled to toast the diversity of UK applications (more financially disadvantaged students) as well as the overall upturn of 2%.

And there has been a 7% increase in applicants from the EU and a 3% increase from those outside the EU.

“Today’s record figures are good news and demonstrate the significant headway we have made to break down barriers to higher education,” said Cable.

“There were many who said that the reform of student finance would discourage young people from going to university. The exact opposite has occurred: numbers have grown, in particular those from disadvantaged backgrounds.”

However, as previously reported on The PIE News, applications are only indicative of forward enrolments, pending acceptance and visa issuance in the case of non-EU applications.

BIS commented in a press statement, “The UCAS statistics also show that the UK’s international reputation in higher education continues to grow with applications from EU students (excluding the UK) and non-EU students increasing by 7% and 3% respectively compared to last year.”

Although the rise in applications by percentage terms sounds robust, the actual rise in applications, year on year, is just under 3,000 for EU and under 2,000 for non-EU compared with 2014.

Looking at applications by domicile, China leads the pack with the most applications recorded (8,010) followed by Hong Kong (5,260), Ireland (5,170), France (4,340) and Malaysia (4,210).

But by percentage change, countries posting a substantial rise in applications via UCAS included Angola (+118%), Botswana (+49%), Croatia (+54%), Oman (+28%) and Romania (+25%).

Not all applications for undergraduate study are made via UCAS.