ABSTRACT
In the year 2000, 66 million students globally, 1 per cent of the world’s population of 6.2 billion people, will be at universities (Blight, 1995:22). As the new millennium starts, 16.5 million students globally will embark on the first year of a first degree, with an average time at university of around four years, including postgraduate study for some. Universities offer these first-year, first-degree places every year, as new age cohorts move through the education system. The best measure of participation in higher education involves a comparison of the number of new undergraduate places with the size of a relevant age cohort. The access rate is the ratio of the number of first-year, first-degree places to the number of 18-year-olds. The number of 18-year-olds can be smoothed by averaging the 18-to 21-year-olds or the 15-to 19-year-olds.
