HUDDERSFIELD University is still a popular choice for school leavers, despite a national slump in applications for degree courses.

The numbers of students applying to start degree courses this autumn has fallen by almost 9% across the UK as tuition fees triple to up to £9,000, according to figures just issued by UCAS, which processes higher education applications.

But for the same period, the University of Huddersfield has seen just a 2.8% reduction in applications for the 4,500 new places available this September.

Nationally, some 50,000 fewer young people have applied for university compared with this time last year – a drop of 8.9%. In England, the numbers applying were down by 10%, a bigger fall than in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

It isn’t just teenagers who are being put off by the higher fees. In the UK overall there was a 10.5% drop in applications from 30 to 35-year-olds, while the numbers of people aged 40 and over was down 10.9%.

Students starting university this autumn will be the first to pay up to £9,000 a year in tuition fees, with many English universities planning to charge the maximum.

Huddersfield University has set its fees at £7,950 which officials have described as “a fair fee.”