It’s going to be harder than ever to get into uni over the next four years

Competition for places at UK universities is set to intensify, as the number of students applying to uni will increase by 40 per cent over the next four years.

Chief Executive of Ucas Clare Marchont told The Times: “By the time my 13-year-old son gets to age 18, it will be much, much, more competitive.

“We think there will be one million applicants by 2025, up from 700,000 now.”

When A- Level results are released next week, many students will be left disappointed, with around a fifth of applicants not getting their first choice university.

It’s also getting even harder to get into Oxford and Cambridge, as since 2015, the number of people applying to either of the two institutions jumped by 24 per cent.

Some individual courses across all universities are also reporting a higher number of applications.

The number of people applying for medicine and dentistry leaped by 20 per cent over the course of the past year.

In response to oversubscribed courses, some universities are encouraging students to consider deferring a year.

Exeter University has even offered medicine applicants £10,000 to delay their studies by a year.

Other courses that are oversubscribed include, law, teaching, nursing, veterinary science and computer sciences.

Meanwhile, the number of applications to humanities subjects and the creative arts has actually dropped.

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