David Willetts, the Universities minister, stated yesterday that the introduction of higher fees has discouraged significant numbers of students from applying.

The provisional figures published by UCAS in November showed that the number of students who applied for places at UK universities was 158,387, down 23,427 compared to the same point a year earlier.

Overall, applications are expected to be down by between 7-8%, when overseas students are included.

2011 saw the final year for which tuition fees were £3000. This year tuition fees  have moved up the scale to around the £9000 mark.

Most universities and colleges are expected to try to charge up to or close to the new limit next year. But some experts predict fees will fall for 2013 as demand drops off, particularly for less prestigious courses.

Sarah Spencer, academic director of the distance learning centre Oxford College, commented:

“Even taking into account last year’s surge in demand for university places, this is a sudden, and severe, drop in applications. It’s not a pretty picture. With many universities now charging £9000 a year for tuition, the cost is clearly scaring off many would-be students.

“It’s years since getting a degree was any sort of guarantee of getting a good job. Now university fees are so high that a three-year degree course is increasingly looking like an expensive gamble. Among our students, we have seen a steep increase in interest in vocational courses like BTEC Higher National Diplomas. Many calculate that these sort of applied courses will give them faster and more cost-effective access to the relevant skills that will improve their job prospects.

“As even the ivory towers of academia are buffeted by the chill economic winds, students’ fears about cost and the anaemic jobs market are combining to change the shape of higher education.”

Overall a record-breaking 465,000 people are applying to begin a degree this September, including a significant increase in the number of older applicants, official figures reported.

The number of applications from over-24s rose by 12.6% and the 20-24 age group increased by 12.9%, the figures published yesterday by the university application service UCAS revealed.

A last-minute boom in applications in the run-up to the December deadline is thought to have been triggered by people wanting to use academia to escape the recession and be better qualified by the time the jobs market picks up again, moving the competition for places to university in addition to the job market.

Vice-chancellors warned last night that with a 7.8% increase in undergraduate applications therefore 34,000 more than last year, students face the most intense competition in years.

Jerry Swerling, director of Public Relations at Annenberg, said he is seeing an overall increase in international student applicants from countries such as India, Pakistan, Taiwan, Canada, Argentina and Finland. “These students want to come here, learn about Public Relations, get internships, and then go back and build the field,” Swerling said. “We’re trying hard to position our program to have global perspective.”

Swerling also said the majority of Chinese international students are applying to the Master’s course in Public Relations because they want to learn the skills needed to help develop China’s slowly emerging PR industry.

”Students might be showing increased interest in the PR profession because it has not been as negatively affected as other industries have been by the recession”, Swerling said. He attributed this to companies looking for more efficient ways to communicate their messages to the public. He also said that, because of the increased need for skilled PR practitioners, the recession might even be increasing the profession’s level of support and credibility:

“Public Relations is a field that is thriving, even in difficult economic times,” Swerling said. “In the short term it’s going to be difficult, but in the long term this is probably the best environment that the PR profession has ever enjoyed.”