* Universities: The term "college" in the UK often refers to a constituent college within a larger university (like colleges within Oxford or Cambridge). This isn't a separate institution. The number of students attending universities in the UK is around 2.5 million.
* Further Education Colleges: These are institutions offering vocational training and further education (A-levels, etc.) at a post-16 level. Millions of students attend these colleges, but they are not higher education in the same sense as universities. Precise numbers vary depending on year and reporting method. You would need to specify which level to get accurate numbers.
To get a precise answer, you need to specify whether you are interested in:
* Higher education students: This would refer to students at universities, and the number is approximately 2.5 million.
* Further education students: This is a much larger group, and the number is not easily accessible in a single figure.
* Students in both higher and further education: This would be the sum of the above two, but again, further education statistics are more complex.
Therefore, without clarification, it's impossible to give a single accurate answer.