Imagine if this morning you had read the following news article:

A 61% drop in student numbers. A clear link to a new funding regime that the government had introduced. A particularly bad effect on the most vulnerable groups in society. Surely, if you read such a report, it would signal a crisis. It is likely that some universities would be closing, or would face a severe financial crisis. Ministers might resign; a rethink would be imminent. Would this even be enough to bring down a government?

This article is not entirely fictional, although it is unlikely that you would have heard it as headline news. There is one word missing: the number of people choosing to study part-time at university in England has dropped by 61% since 2010. These changes tend to be discussed (if at all) as a side issue: in the media, by government ministers, and within universities. The decline in part-time undergraduates is seen as a regrettable byproduct of a system that is nonetheless recruiting more students than ever before, including those from backgrounds that are not well represented in higher education. One reason part-time students have been invisible is because they do not apply for their programmes through the national Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS). As a consequence, figures for full-time students who have applied through that route are routinely quoted as if they represent the whole student population.

What happens if we count full- and part-time students together? According to Universities UK (2017), in 2011/12 there were 2,105,730 undergraduate students in universities and further education colleges, once all modes of study are included. There were 173,390 fewer students by 2015/16, a fall of about 8% (Universities UK, 2017, p 11). In other words: the overall number of students in the system has fallen.