The number of people applying to enter university has risen by 6.4% across the UK.
The rise comes despite an increase in tuition fees, last September, to £3,000 in England and Northern Ireland.
According to university admissions body Ucas, 395,307 students applied for UK university courses in 2007, compared to 371,683 in 2006.
There is also greater demand for career-led courses. Applications for degrees in business and administrative studies are up by a quarter, tourism, transport and travel degrees rose by 30%, and finance degrees had 20% more applicants. Civil engineering, physics, chemistry and maths also saw rises of 10% or more.
Some subjects saw a decline in applicants - archaeology saw a fall in applications of over 10%, while astronomy suffered a 17% decline.
While England saw the biggest rise in applicants of 7.2%, the Celtic countries had more modest rises – 1.9% in Scotland, 0.3% in Northern Ireland, while Wales showed a slight dip of 0.1%.
Bill Rammell said: “ These highest ever figures show that tuition fees are not putting students off applying to University as many predicted. The critics of the new system are being proved emphatically wrong.”
The numbers of international students applying to UK univesities also increased; applicants from the EU are up by 15.8%, and applicants from other overseas countries are up by 6.6%.
