The pie charts provide information about why students chose to attend an institution in the UK between 1987 and 2007. Overall, having a suitable degree course was the main response in both of those years, while the remaining categories saw a shift towards the university being close to parental.
Looking into the data, “suitable degree courses” accounted for the highest proportion with 35% in 1987 and saw a slight increase of 2 percentage point two decade later. In contrast, the second most popular reason in 1987, quality of resources, started with 21% and dropped to 17% in 2007, less than half of the former reason’s figure at the time.
Meanwhile, in 1987, in the accending order, “close to parental”, “quality of teaching” and good sports and social activities represented 10%, 15% and 19% respectively. However, the lowest reasons with the lowest figure saw their figure doubled to 22% in 2 decades, while the remaining had declined to around 7%, this had made “close to parental” to be the second most favourable factor among the students, highlighting a shift towards higher universities but close range universities with accomodation for their degrees.