The cost of university life may be prompting more students to live at home while they study, the latest figures suggest.

One in six students applying to higher education courses in the United Kingdom this year will live at home if they secure a university place, according the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (Ucas).

This is a 2.3% increase on last year in the number of people applying to universities and colleges closer to their family - and marks a continuing trend towards stay-at-home students.

As well as cutting down on the cost of attending university, the shift towards students attending local colleges has been attributed to the greater breadth of courses available, with fewer students now feeling obliged to travel.

The application figures also suggested a continuing decline in undergraduate teacher training degrees, with a further shift towards would-be teachers taking one-year postgraduate degrees.

And the government's drive to recruit more nurses may be working, with a 14.4% surge in applications to study nursing at university this year.

Applications for maths and computing-related subjects have also picked up sharply.

'Cutting costs'

Ucas chief executive Tony Higgins said: "Higher education courses are now much more widely available at further education colleges than they used to be, which means many more people can now take a degree or diploma course at their local college without moving away from home.

"There are also greater financial pressures for students, which means some will cut their costs by staying at home while studying."

More people were also taking a year out for travel or to save money to pay for the cost of student living, he added.

The figures cover universities in all four countries of the UK.