To ask the Minister for Employment and Learning to detail the number of university students leaving Northern Ireland to study elsewhere in the United Kingdom, in each of the last 5 years; and how budgetary pressures within the higher education sector are likely to impact upon this.

The table below shows the number of Northern Ireland domiciled first year students enrolled in undergraduate and postgraduate courses at Higher Education Institutions in Great Britain.

As a result of the 2015-16 Budget, this academic year, our universities and university colleges will be taking cuts of over £16 million, and our further education colleges about £12 million, with an obvious impact on their higher education provision. As a consequence, we are witnessing a very real impact in terms of student places and staff posts. Queen’s and Ulster University, our two largest universities, are taking over 500 less local students this year, rising to nearly 2,000 over the next few years.

More students will now likely go to study in Great Britain. Northern Ireland is already the only net exporter of students in the UK, with almost a third of our young people choosing to go to England, Scotland or Wales every year and far fewer coming the other way.

When these students leave they take with them a whole host of socio-economic benefits, and the figures show that about two thirds of them do not return to Northern Ireland for employment.

More regrettably than that, others who do not gain a higher education place here may simply decide not to enter higher education at all, and the evidence suggests that people from disadvantaged backgrounds will be affected most of all.