Universities where a third of students quit

Former polytechnics dominate a dropout league which costs taxpayers hundreds of millions of pounds in wasted tuition costs and subsidised loans.

Across the country, 45,000 students who started courses in 2004 quit their studies - enough to fill three universities.

The worst failure rate was at so-called "new" universities and among students with the lowest entry qualifications.

At more than 30 institutions, dropout rates are higher than a fifth. But at a handful, they are around a third.

At the University of Bolton, 31.7 per cent gave up while at the UHI Millennium Institute in Inverness the figure was 35.3 per cent.

Other universities with higher-than-average dropout rates include Anglia Ruskin on 27.8 per cent, Middlesex on 26.5 per cent, Liverpool Hope University on 26.3 per cent and the University of Glamorgan on 29.9 per cent.

The figures reveal that, overall, 22.4 per cent of the 319,000 students who started degrees in 2004 failed to graduate this summer from the courses they started.

Some moved to other institutions or switched to different qualifications but 14.2 per cent - 45,000 students - dropped out altogether.

While this is an improvement on last year's figure of 14.9 per cent, it still means that many of the students are leaving university early with little or nothing to show for the time or money they have invested.

Undergraduates must repay their loans but these are heavily subsidised by the Treasury.

And tuition fees do not cover the whole cost of teaching them, yet there is no way for the State to recoup the shortfall from dropouts.

The figures showed that students described as having "no previous qualification" on entry to university - probably because tutors accepted work experience in place of academic results - were more likely to drop out.

Universities accepted 275 applicants under 21 on this basis last year, the figures show. Students were also more likely to drop out if their highest qualifications were BTECs, GNVQs or low A-level grades equivalent to a D and E.

Some 4,470 out of 261,205 new entrants in 2005/06 had just one or two low-grade A-levels, while 5,515 had vocational A-levels or GNVQs only.

The scale of non-completion at some institutions raises questions over Government moves to increase university attendance.

Critics have claimed some students are sold short by "mickey mouse" degrees in subjects such as belly-dancing.

However a spokesman for the Higher Education Funding Council said: "We have been in a period of expansion of higher education and the dropout rate has not deteriorated."

Gemma Tumelty, president of the National Union of Students, said it was "vital" to make sure undergraduates do not quit.

She said: "Increasing access and widening participation is not just about getting students in the door, it is about keeping students there and ensuring they excel."

Tory universities spokesman David Willetts agreed.

He added: "The Government appears only focused on getting students from modest backgrounds into universities.

"It is just as important to help them stay on and get to the end."