HEA Statistics Newsletter Quarter 3 2022

Third edition of the HEA Quarterly Statistics Newsletter

Newly released Key Facts and Figures 2021/22 figures and dashboards, an Info-Byte on the Creative Arts in Higher Education and the latest Institutional Profiles publications.

Key Facts and Figures 2021/22

The latest Irish higher education statistics are hot off the press!  Key Facts and Figures 2021/22 are out now.

Our website has the latest statistics available in a series of interactive dashboards.  The key findings are as follows:

• In 2021/22, there were 246,299 students (up 0.3% from 245,663 in 2020/21).
• Almost two-thirds were studying Honours Degrees (61.6%), and 11.3% were studying a Taught Masters. In 2020/21, these were 60.8%, and 10.8%, respectively.
• Ordinary Degrees are steadily declining in popularity (6.8% in 2021/22 and 7.3% in 2020/21, compared to 11.3% of 2015/16 students).
• The gender gap has continued to widen, with females accounting for 54.5% of the overall student population. This is up from 54.0% in 2020/21, and up from 51.4% in 2015/16.
• The most popular subject group studied is Business, Administration & Law (20.6%), followed by Health & Welfare (17.5%). In 2020/21, 22.3% studied Business, Administration & Law, and 17.3% studied Health & Welfare.
• Internationally domiciled students made up 12.4% of the student population. This is up from 10.3% in 2020/21.
• UCD is the largest higher education institution, with more than 29,000 students. This is followed closely by TU Dublin.
• The US is the most common country of origin for Internationally domiciled students (14.8%). This is followed by India, and China. In 2020/21, the most common country of origin was China (13.5%), followed by the UK, and India.
• Only 6.6% of new entrants were mature students. This is down from 7.0% in 2020/21. This has steadily declined from 10.9% in 2015/16.
• Nearly 3 in 4 new entrants responded to the Equal Access Survey. This is an improvement from the 68.1% response rate in 2020/21. Of the 2021/22 respondents, 17.8% reported a disability. In 2020/21, 18.1% reported a disability.
• In 2021/22, there were 88,638 graduates (up 8.8% from 81,461 in 2020/21).

And for anyone looking to access the data, you can now download directly from the website at the link below.

Read Key Facts and Figures Here

Download the Latest Data Here