Facts and figures

The Open University in facts and figures

Since the OU's launch in 1969 more than 1.5 million people worldwide have achieved their learning goals by studying with us.

The OU is the biggest university in the UK with:

more than 250,000 students

more than 7,000 tutors

more than 1,200 full-time academic staff 

more than 3,500 support and administrative staff

The UK university that is also European and worldwide

Open University students are not just in the UK. Most courses are available throughout Europe and some are available worldwide directly from the OU. Many more courses are available through our partnerships and accredited institutions. There are currently:

around 3,500 students in the Republic of Ireland

around 9,000 students elsewhere in Europe

around 7,500 outside the European Union

around 46,000 students on OU-validated programmes

OU outside the UK

Who are the OU’s students?

Our students come from the widest possible range of backgrounds

• We have students who are in their teens, including some Year 12 and 13 school students who are studying OU courses alongside A-levels. We have students in their 90s - and all ages in between.
• The average age of new undergraduate OU students is 32.

We are the largest provider of higher education for people with disabilities

• Almost 12,000 people with disabilities study with us each year.

We are opening up opportunities for lower-income groups 

• In 2008/9 around 47,000 students received some kind of financial support.

Our open admissions policy helps thousands of people who failed to achieve their potential earlier in life

• Up to 44 per cent of our UK student population starts undergraduate study without the entry qualifications they would need at a conventional university.

Thousands of people, who might not have been able to study because of work or family commitments, are able to study part-time with us

• Approximately 70 per cent of OU students are studying while in employment. 

What are our students studying?

In 2008/9 our students included:

• More than 18,310 studying at access level
• More than 14,000 studying for taught postgraduate qualifications
• More than 1,300 research students

Funding facts

Our total income in 2008/9 was £421 million, made up mainly of government grants, student fees and research funding.

Financial highlights from the academic year 2008/9 appear in the annual report.

The OU is a fast-changing organisation and that applies to our statistics too. The facts and figures quoted here are a snapshot taken from our academic year 2008/9.

Some things you may not know about The Open University

• The Open University took its first 24,000 students in 1971. Since then, more than two million people have taken an OU course: alumni relations
• 75% of FTSE 100 companies have sponsored their staff to study with the OU: The OU at work
• The OU offers a choice from around 570 courses
• Each year 400,000 packs of academic learning materials are sent out to students from our distribution centre
• The Archers, Brookside, Ever Decreasing Circles, Birds of a Feather and Goodnight Sweetheart have all had OU students written into their plots
• One of actress Julie Walters' first major film roles was portraying an OU student opposite Michael Caine in Educating Rita
• The OU is the largest provider of law graduates in the UK
• The OU is one of a handful of universities to have won University Challenge twice, in 1985 and 1999
• Among well-known names who have tutored for the OU are former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, actress Glenda Jackson and broadcaster Anna Ford 
• In 2010 the OU held 26 degree ceremonies in 17 locations including Dublin, Manchester, Glasgow, Ely and Versailles - featured in the video, below