Applications to UK universities have risen by 9.1 per cent compared with the same point last year, according to new figures from the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS).

The total of 540,108 applicants was boosted by the inclusion for the first time of admissions for nursing and midwifery diploma courses. When these are excluded, the number of applications is still up by a strong 6.4 per cent.

But the figures also suggest that young men are being left behind in the drive to educate more young people to degree level.

Women were in the minority at university up to 1992, but since then the balance has shifted in the opposite direction. Last year the proportion of young males studying for a degree fell from 37 per cent in 1999 to 35 per cent. Among women, the figure rose from 41 per cent in 1999 to 45 per cent.

The latest figures from UCAS show the balance has tipped even more towards women, with applications from female students up 11 per cent to 302,946 and applications from men up 6.8 per cent to 235,162.

And despite the government throwing hundreds of millions of pounds at widening university access and expanding degree courses to enrol more students from disadvantaged backgrounds, the number of applicants from England classified in the lower socioeconomic groups has risen by less than one percentage point from 28.8 per cent in 2007 to 29.6 per cent in 2008.

There was also a 6.4 per cent rise in the numbers of students from overseas. A large proportion are from China, up 22.7 per cent on last year from 6,423 to 7,880.

There was also a dramatic increase in the number of applications from the newest European Union member states including 1,056 from Bulgaria (up 92.3 per cent from 549 last year) and 755 from Romania (up 114.5 per cent from 352 on last year).

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