This is from Guardian Online:

The number of part-time undergraduate students leapt by more than 80% last year, according to the first official figures detailing who went to university in 2003. Numbers of part-time students increased from 13.1% of all undergraduates in 2002 to 23.2% in 2003, today's figures reveal.

In total, there were 188,360 part-timers studying for first degrees in 2003 compared with just 103,545 in 2002.

and again,

Today's figures show that 41.7% of all students in higher education now study part-time. And, while the number doing postgraduate courses has remained static at 31.2%, the bulk of those studying on a part-time basis are working to secure programmes for sub-degree courses, such as foundation degrees and higher national diplomas.

Part-time students are more likely to be women (62.4%) and are expected to be aged 30-plus (71.1%).

Previous studies have shown that more than half of part-time students chose to study that way so they can continue their careers, or advance their career prospects.

It could be that the sudden growth in part-time courses is a response to tuition fees. However, part-time further education was clearly a major part of further education even before that.

It seems that people who either never had further education, or else had what was prescribed by the Government and found it did not achieve what they wanted, now increasingly use education for something that they do really want: getting a better job. They may well be finding that when they choose the course themselves with a specific purpose in mind, that they get more out of it.

They are therefore, it seems, more willing to pay:

Part-time students' fees are already deregulated

This phenomenon, incidentally, of people fending for themselves and being prepared to make sacrifices for what they really want, suggests part of the answer to the paradox noted in a previous posting: that now the government controls the training and employment of doctors, there is a shortage, yet when doctors had to finance their own training (aided to some extent by donations) and they were employed by charitable and other hospitals, there was no shortage.

(The Guardian article, of course, is phrased in terms of how universities want more government subsidies but that could well damage the flexibility and quality of the courses and the commitment of the students.)