For universities and colleges in the UK at least, some students every year will say 'I want to come, but not just yet'. They have the high school record (usually 'A' levels) to take up a place - but universities would prefer them to take places now rather than waiting until later, present income being preferable to the possibiluty of income in future (they might not show at all!). Equally the student knows that deferring can be risky - what if that 'gap year' proves just too entrancing; what if fees go up; what if the subjects they'd prefer to study drop from the curriculum?

No university would currently favour MORE deferred entry students, but what if deferred entry were more easily accommodated by the college and attractive to the student? Wouldn't that open the opportunity of higher education to students who might otherwise bypass it altogether?

One way to do this is to have universities publish forecast fee rates for first year fees over the next (say) three years, showing the cost of foregoing entry in the autumn/fall term, but also advertising the number of *deferred* students required to guarantee keeping a module/credit class in the curriculum of a degree programme for the following year. Institutions could fix the 'deferred students required level' in such a way as to 'top-up' the forecast numbers. That way students could judge, near to the time they need to make the defer/go decision, how costly it is to defer (the 'first year future fees foreecast' [lovingly known as the FFFF figure!]) and how likely it is they will have the curriculum options they want. A portal site could do this for each programme in real time.

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