Of the 3.8 million students on further education courses in further education colleges, 1 million were on full-time courses, 900,000 on part-time evening only courses and 1.9 million on part-time day courses. The provisional cost of further education in 1996-97 was £3.15 billion. The planned cost for 1997-98 is £3.14 billion.

Trends and Features
• Over 70 per cent of full-time students in further education are under 21 years of age.

• Over 75 per cent of part-time further education students are over 25 years old.

• In November 1996:
  • 36 per cent of all 16 to 18 year olds were taking further education courses;

  • 12 per cent of all 19 to 20 year-olds were taking further education courses, split fairly evenly between full-time and part-time courses;

  • 1.1 million people aged 25 and over were taking part-time further education courses (5 per cent of the total population aged 25 to 59).