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Tony Higgins, chief executive of UCAS says that based on these early figures, the total number of students expected to apply this year could be 80000 less than those who applied last year. This could be due to the introduction of tuition fees next year, and the phasing out of maintenance grants, despite reassurance by David Blunkett, the education secretary, that up to 30% of university students would not have to pay fees after the introduction of a means testing scheme.

It is not yet clear if the trend is also reflected in applications to medical schools. The Department of Health hoped to offset a fall in medical student numbers by announcing that they would pay medical undergraduate's tuition fees from the fifth year onwards. However, it is not clear how this would apply to students who have had to resit periods of their course and to mature students doing medicine as a second degree.

The newly elected BMA's medical students committee are campaigning for students to pay fees for three years only and for extra loans to be made available to clinical students.

"Medical students should really only have to pay fees for three years in line with other students and the provision for living costs still remains woefully inadequate, " the outgoing chairman, Derek McLaughlin, told the student committee. He also raised concerns about the fact that the money offered from the Department of Health effectively made undergraduate medical students employees of the NHS.

"We could end up having to do phlebotomy rounds while we really should be working towards our finals," he said.