The bar chart compares the influence rate of main contributors to student’s decision-making when attending a particular university in the UK in 1995 and 2005. The five involved factors, including quality of resources, suitable degree course, close to parental home, quality of teaching and good sport and social activities, are demonstrated in percentage.
Overall, it is evident that suitable degree courses accounted for the biggest share of influence in the two years 1995 and 2005, exceeding the rate of the other factors. Another noticeable feature is that while the percentage of students choosing university for short promixity between parental accomodation and the educational instutional saw the most significant increase between the two years, the opposite trend was true for good sport and social activities.
In 1995, 35 per cent of students selected preferred school by considering suitable degree courses, making this factor the most favorite. This was followed by quality of resources, which accounted for over 20 per cent of students’ decisions, a few per cent more than good sport and social activities. Moreover, it is shown that 15 per cent of students’ decisions were made based on the quality of teach, 5 per cent higher than the proportion that ‘close to parental home’ contributed.
Until 2005, many variations were observed, with the least considerable change seen in suitable degree courses: marginal 2-per-cent rise. This was far outweighed by the doubling rise of ‘close to parental home’, which led the figure to reach approximately 23 per cent. Another insigniificant increase occurred in the quality of teaching, adding roughly 3 per cent to the previous rate of 15 per cent. However, quality of resources and good sport and social activites went into an opposite direction, experiencing the drop of 5-per-cent and the most dramatic decline of under 10 per cent. As a result, the two figures finished at around 16 per cent and just above 5 per cent respectively.
In summary, it can be inferred that proper degree courses remained the most important factor to the attraction of a university throughout1 10 years. Furthermore, while students tended to increasingly prefer near universities, good sport and social acitivities received the leastt amount of preference in the latest year.
