For some of the hundreds of thousands hoping to start a degree this autumn, the chances of winning a place improved markedly today – but not if your target is Bristol or Liverpool, and not if you are aiming for any of the five most popular subjects.

The distribution of the 10,000 extra places announced by the Government is particularly good news for budding scientists who have applied to Kingston or Manchester Metropolitan universities, which will be admitting at least 500 more students than expected.

A total of 161 institutions will benefit from the latest allocation, although many are further education colleges gaining only a handful of places. The list on the website of the Higher Education Funding Council for England includes many leading universities, including Bath, Durham, Manchester and Sheffield.

But, since the extra places are mainly in subjects that are expensive to teach and the only funding that will come with them is the income from students’ fees, many of the top names have opted out. Among 27 universities that have declined extra places are Oxford and Cambridge, Imperial College London, Nottingham and Warwick. Another 19 have taken fewer places than they were offered.

The absence of so many oversubscribed universities will be a disappointment to well-qualified applicants who fear being squeezed out in a year when the demand for places is up by more than 9 per cent. But the biggest increases in applications are at new universities such as Buckinghamshire New University, Bedfordshire and Portsmouth, which attract large numbers of older, local students. Some famous names, such as Durham and Lancaster, actually have fewer applications this year.

Most of the courses that will have additional places available are in so-called STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). But the scope of the exercise has been extended somewhat to include economics and business degrees. The full list is also on the Hefce website.

The list is still sufficiently restrictive to exclude the five most popular subjects, however. Law, psychology, design, medicine and nursing apparently did not meet the criterion of conferring the skills that are most needed by the economy. The same goes, obviously, for the remaining arts and social sciences.

Some of the subjects in which there will be extra places have seen big increases in applications this year. Economics, for example, is up by almost 14 per cent and mechanical engineering by 19 per cent. But there will be a lot of disappointed applicants in subjects such as nursing (up 24 per cent), journalism (up 27 per cent) and politics (up almost 17 per cent).

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