Concerted efforts to widen the intake do not seem to be working

Admissions service Ucas said a total of 421,824 people had applied for a full-time undergraduate course by the main deadline of 15 January.

There were another 8,665 who previously would have applied separately for nursing and midwifery diploma courses.

A breakdown of social backgrounds shows only a slight change on 2007: 29.6% from lower groups compared with 28.9%.

But the fact that midwifery applicants were included for the first time may have had an impact on these figures, Ucas said.

Overall not only have far more women applied than men, as usual - 244,167 compared with 186,322 - but the percentage increase in female applications is also greater: 10.2% against 7.2%.

The biggest percentage change (18.2%) was in applicants aged over 25.

Overseas

Among the home nations, Wales stood out by having a 10.7% fall in the number of applicants.

The biggest percentage change among overseas applicants was in Bulgaria, up from 400 to 845 (more than 111%).

Ucas chief executive Anthony McClaran said: "These figures show that for the second year running we are seeing strong growth in the level of applications for undergraduate courses.

"These figures provide an encouraging indication for the likely position in the summer and, of course, there will still be thousands more applications between now and then."

Shadow innovation, universities and skills secretary David Willetts said: "These figures show a continuing increase in the overall number of university applications. But there is one important group that remain at the bottom of the heap: working-class men.

"We are seeing rapid growth in the number of female students, international students and older students.

"It is great to see such a diverse mix of people at our universities. But young working-class males are being left behind."

Liberal Democrat spokesman Stephen Williams said: "With over half of applicants having parents in professional occupations, social mobility has clearly stagnated.

"University might not be right for everyone, but the decision to apply should be down to individual students and not pre-determined by their parental background."

Mr Williams called for a comprehensive study of the demographic make-up of applicants ahead of the government's higher education funding review next year.