More students get university places

University appears still to be a popular option

The number of students accepted into UK universities has risen by 3.5% on the previous year, from 276,768 to 286,481.

The rise in the number of students accepted onto degree courses comes after the pass rate for this year's A-levels shot up by 4.5 percentage points, to 94.3%.

Official statistics from the Universities and Colleges Admissions Services (Ucas) show the number of mature students - those aged 25 and over - accepted into university is up 5% on 2001 from 24,466 to 25,700.

The number of students coming from overseas to study in the UK has also risen by 9.6% on figures for 2001.

Clearing

The university course search on the Ucas website - www.ucas.com - has clocked up 670,500 searches since A-level results day on 15 August.

There have been 249,995 logins to the web-based enquiry service, 1,807 of which were from WAP phones.

On Wednesday morning though, the Ucas website was down due to a major power cut.

The power failure in Cheltenham, where the Ucas headquarters are situated, meant students enquiring about university places through clearing were unable to log on to the website or get through on the telephone.

Both systems were running again by 1345 BST.

Late August is the busiest time for Ucas, with many A-level students relying on the clearing system to find a place at university.