Young people in Britain are increasingly sceptical of the need to go to university and are more aware of apprenticeships, according to polling, as a record proportion of school-leavers await their A-level results.

More than 300,000 sixth formers across England, Wales and Northern Ireland will find out the results of their summer exams on Thursday and in many cases use the grades to gain places on undergraduate courses. But only two-thirds of young people rate a university education as important, according to the poll conducted by Ipsos MORI for the Sutton Trust.

Sixty-five per cent of young people up to the age of 16 said they thought it was important to go to university, continuing a downward trend seen since 2013, when 86% said a university education was important. A year ago the figure was 75% .

This year’s polling also found nearly two-thirds of respondents were interested in doing an apprenticeship rather than going to university after leaving school, which the Sutton Trust said “may in part be down to a growing awareness of apprenticeships and other high-quality training routes”.

Sir Peter Lampl, the chairman of the educational charity, said young people needed better careers guidance, including where different degrees and apprenticeships could lead.

“Young people face a dilemma. If they go on to university, they incur debts of over £50,000 and will be paying back their loans well into middle age. And in many cases they will end up with degrees that don’t get them into graduate jobs,” Lampl said.

Despite the decline in enthusiasm, the latest poll found no change in the proportion of secondary school pupils expecting to go into higher education: 77% said they were very or fairly likely to go to university when they were old enough, with only 40% saying they were worried about cost.

This year’s A-levels will include results for the last major tranche of subjects given an overhaul by Michael Gove as education secretary. Candidates sat reformed exams in 19 subjects for the first time, including design and technology, Chinese, further maths and politics.

School leaders say results may be affected by the continuing funding crisis that is especially felt at post-16 institutions such as sixth-form colleges and further education colleges, whose budgets have been cut compared with schools in England.

“Our members have delivered another year of outstanding A-level results. Students are coping extremely well with the new-style A-levels, where exams are taken at the end of the course, usually after two years,” said Bill Watkin, the chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges Association.

“However, it will be impossible to maintain these high standards without a serious increase in sixth form funding in next month’s spending review. The government must wake up to the sixth form funding crisis and significantly increase investment levels.”

Universities say they are preparing for higher than usual numbers of students seeking places through the post-results admissions process known as clearing, with forecasts of 70,000 or more using the route this year.

“Traditionally, clearing was very much the back-up option for students to find a place if they had not done as well as they’d hoped in their exams. However, increasingly students have used clearing to effectively switch to a new university if their results exceeded expectations,” said Adrian Dutch, the University of Westminster’s director of admissions.

Earlier this week Labour pledged to delay the university application process in England until after A-level results were published, meaning that students would have a clearer idea of courses they could apply to.

A snap poll conducted by YouGov found widespread support for the move, with 56% of nearly 3,000 British adults saying they supported post-qualification admissions and only 22% saying they opposed.