Estimating suicide among higher education students, England and Wales: Experimental Statistics 2017 to 2020

The rate of suicide in the 12 months ending July 2017 for higher education students in England and Wales was 4.7 deaths per 100,000 students, which equates to 95 suicides; this is higher than in most of the earlier years studied, although the small numbers per year make it difficult to identify statistically significant differences.
Between the 12 months ending July 2013 and the 12 months ending July 2016, higher education students in England and Wales had a significantly lower suicide rate compared with the general population  of similar ages. Male higher education students had a significantly higher rate of suicide compared with female students.
The number of suicides in the analysis is lower than previous Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimates of student suicides; this is likely to be because this analysis focuses on higher education students  only, while the ONS previous estimates will cover other students, for example, those in further education.