AbstractThe Government has set targets for an expansion in student numbers by the year 2,000 at a time when there is a dramatic fall in the numbers of school leavers. Institutions of higher education need to create new markets for student recruitment, both among mature people and also among 18 year‐olds, this latter implying a more realistic assessment of the ability of applicants to benefit from courses and a new approach to school leaving examinations. In order to maximise the exploitation of these markets, institutions must adopt a more serious attitude to admissions, treating them more as matters of policy rather than of administrative function. Unless higher education adopts aggressive marketing and selling practices it will lose out to employers in the competition for young peopl