tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/widening-participation-10945/articlesWidening participation – The Conversation2024-03-08T17:30:05Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2209562024-03-08T17:30:05Z2024-03-08T17:30:05ZThe Turing scheme was supposed to help more disadvantaged UK students study abroad – but they may still be losing out<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578679/original/file-20240228-8828-vvwi2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C25%2C2871%2C1888&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/youth-group-vacation-travel-city-329701265">Kichigin/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The loss of access for UK university students to the Erasmus+ scheme – a Europe-wide exchange programme that offers students the opportunity and funding to study or work abroad for up to a year – was a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/29/world/europe/brexit-erasmus-uk-eu.html">widely mourned</a> consequence of Brexit. </p>
<p>The UK government announced a replacement, the <a href="https://www.turing-scheme.org.uk/">Turing scheme</a>, in December 2020. This scheme funds education or training placements outside the UK – in theory, anywhere in the world. Unlike Erasmus+, though, it is not a reciprocal exchange scheme. It does not fund overseas students coming to the UK. </p>
<p>The first students took part in the academic year 2021-22, and the government published <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/turing-scheme-evaluation-of-year-1">an evaluation</a> of the first year the scheme in January 2024. It shows that while most student participants reported a positive experience, both the length of placements and the timeline of the application process may have penalised students from less well-off backgrounds. </p>
<p>When the UK government launched the Turing scheme, <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10734-023-00995-0">widening participation</a> – making study abroad accessible to a more diverse group of students – was a <a href="https://bera-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1002/berj.3844">key objective</a>. The scheme was compared directly to Erasmus+ in this regard: it was argued by the UK government when they <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10734-023-00995-0">launched the scheme</a> that Erasmus+ had largely failed to attract more disadvantaged students. </p>
<p>According to the report, around 39% of Turing participants were from disadvantaged backgrounds. Directly comparable figures for Erasmus+ are difficult to attain, although there is a <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0958928719899339#body-ref-bibr6-0958928719899339">widely held consensus</a> that the uptake of Erasmus+ placements by more disadvantaged young people was low.</p>
<p>A report by the <a href="https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/publications/turing-scheme-understanding-impacts-and-implications/">British Academy</a>, published in November 2023, notes that significantly more students participated in the Turing scheme in 2021-2022 than had taken Erasmus+ placements each year. This may suggest some success in meeting the government’s widening participation objectives. </p>
<p>However, this report also observed that those from disadvantaged backgrounds in 2021-2022 received less funding from the Turing scheme average monthly stipend than they would have under Erasmus+. </p>
<p>What’s more, the application timeframe for the Turing scheme may have limited the ability of students from poorer backgrounds to take part. </p>
<p>The government’s report shows that students did not hear back about whether their applications for the Turing scheme and its associated funding had been successful until July. Many overseas placements required students to be in place by August, for the start of their academic year – less than a month later. Even those students starting their placement in September needed confirmation of funding before July. </p>
<p>This affected students from less affluent backgrounds, whose participation was wholly dependent on Turing funding. Some who could not afford upfront costs without the funding, or could not take the risk that funding would not be granted, <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6583029523b70a0013234d29/Turing_Scheme_year_1_evaluation.pdf">dropped out</a> of the scheme. </p>
<h2>Shorter stays</h2>
<p>The government’s new evaluation provides a useful profile of participants on the scheme during its first year. It shows that 67% were studying, while 33% were on work placements. Europe and North America were the most common destinations. </p>
<p>The length of the placement varied considerably. University students’ Turing placements lasted 109 days, on average. Students at further education and vocational education colleges, and school students, were also eligible for the scheme, but their placements were much shorter: an average of 26 days for college students and only seven days for school pupils. </p>
<p>Students at further education and vocational institutions are likely to be <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/improving-attainment-in-the-fe-and-adult-learning-sector/improving-attainment-among-disadvantaged-students-in-the-fe-and-adult-learning-sector-evidence-review-html#:%7E:text=Individuals%20from%20disadvantaged%20backgrounds%20are,to%20other%20post%2D16%20routes">less privileged</a> than those at universities. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/sites/default/files/field/downloads/2021-07/widening-participation-in-uk-outward-student-mobility.pdf">Research has suggested</a> that disadvantaged students are more likely to take shorter trips than longer stays. But shorter placements may not be as <a href="https://bera-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1002/berj.3844">valuable to students</a> as longer ones. </p>
<p>Length of placement <a href="https://bera-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1002/berj.3844">has been linked</a> to a better quality and value of experience, meaning that further education and vocational students may be further disadvantaged by the shorter placements on offer to them. </p>
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<h2>Difficult process</h2>
<p>The government’s report on the first year of the scheme noted that 79% of universities had found the application process difficult, compared to the more straightforward Erasmus application. </p>
<p>They also reported that the timescale for submitting the application was too short. The short timeframe prevented institutions from thinking innovatively about international placements. </p>
<p>Most fell back on what one described as “business as usual”. This presumably indicates that universities, colleges and schools made use of pre-existing relationships with overseas institutions rather than seeking new ones. </p>
<p>Despite apparent difficulties with the application process, 86% of providers reapplied in the second year of the scheme.</p>
<p>These administrative issues may, over time, be ironed out with adjustments to the application process. However, more fundamentally, some universities expressed concerns about the lack of reciprocity under the Turing scheme. This may provoke questions about the sustainability of relationships with other institutions that are not reciprocal. </p>
<p>It also has potential <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/psp.2727">geopolitical ramifications</a>. The UK may appear insular, unwelcoming and uninterested in fostering two-way and meaningful international relationships through the scheme. </p>
<p>What’s more, making students wait for funding outcomes is likely to put off less privileged students. This means that the actual impact of the Turing scheme on social mobility in the longer term, remains uncertain.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220956/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Johanna L. Waters does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The application timeframe for the scheme may have limited the ability of students from poorer backgrounds to take part.Johanna L. Waters, Professor of Human Geography, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2100732023-07-26T10:57:52Z2023-07-26T10:57:52ZFoundation year courses are about to become cheaper – but this could make it harder for disadvantaged students to go to university<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539284/original/file-20230725-19-vq90xv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C7%2C5104%2C2866&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/classroom-multi-ethnic-students-listening-lecturer-1077839501">Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The UK government <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1170673/Higher_education_policy_statement_and_reform_-_government_consultation_response.pdf">has announced</a> that the maximum tuition fee for foundation years in English universities will be cut from £9,250 to £5,760. The reduction will apply to all classroom-based courses, such as business and social sciences, and will be likely to come into effect for the 2025-26 academic year. </p>
<p>Foundation years are offered by universities as a preparatory year of study for students who may not have the necessary qualifications, skills, and subject-specific knowledge to go straight into an undergraduate degree course. </p>
<p>Enter requirements vary, and previous work experience and academic background will often be considered. After finishing the foundation year, students are expected to progress into the university’s degree course for the same subject.</p>
<p>The government’s decision to cut fees <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/805127/Review_of_post_18_education_and_funding.pdf">stems from concerns</a> that foundation years are <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/crackdown-on-rip-off-university-degrees">poor value for money</a> for taxpayers and students and may not be necessary for some students. </p>
<p>Reducing the fees will likely lead to universities offering fewer of these courses – a change that will disproportionately affect students from underrepresented backgrounds. </p>
<h2>A pathway in</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2021/05/20/the-case-for-putting-foundation-years-on-more-stable-ground/#:%7E:text=Across%20our%20ten%20institutions%2C%20students,likely%20to%20have%20a%20disability">Evidence</a> gathered from ten universities shows that foundation year students are more likely to be both male and from an underrepresented background. They are more likely to be from an ethnic minority, to be from a poorer background or to have a disability than the general student population. </p>
<p>Foundation years also provide an access route to university for many <a href="https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/media/f3450e04-2d2b-4b33-932f-41140d57c41e/ofs2019_20.pdf">mature students</a> from poorer backgrounds.</p>
<p>Between 2012-13 and 2017-18, foundation year entrants <a href="https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/media/f3450e04-2d2b-4b33-932f-41140d57c41e/ofs2019_20.pdf">tripled</a>. Meanwhile, the number of students taking alternative, cheaper Access to Higher Education Diplomas declined by 18%. These access diplomas are taught at further education colleges. </p>
<p>Foundation years do not result in a qualification or certificate. However, they allow a student to start at university. The course fees are higher but students also have access to maintenance loans and university bursaries for underrepresented groups, which may not be possible for those taking access diplomas.</p>
<p>I carried out <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0309877X.2020.1762171">research</a> with colleagues to investigate students’ experience of their foundation year. We asked students to create digital stories – short videos which included text, images and animation – about their experience. </p>
<p>We found that the students saw the foundation year as a key part of their personal journey. “I’ve understood how to be myself,” one narrated. </p>
<p>Some students saw the year as a step backwards, a requirement they had to fulfil after not meeting the entrance requirements for an undergraduate course. Others saw it as a way to test out university life. </p>
<p>Being on campus and accessing the facilities it had to offer was important to the students, as was the style of teaching. “It’s a lot different to college, in a good way,” one student said. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Black female student choosing a book in university library." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539286/original/file-20230725-21-dio99v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539286/original/file-20230725-21-dio99v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539286/original/file-20230725-21-dio99v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539286/original/file-20230725-21-dio99v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539286/original/file-20230725-21-dio99v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539286/original/file-20230725-21-dio99v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539286/original/file-20230725-21-dio99v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Foundation year students value experiencing university life.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/waist-portrait-female-africaamerican-student-choosing-2026190900">SeventyFour/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>I have been exploring the value students place on their foundation year study further in <a href="https://shura.shu.ac.uk/30966/">ongoing research</a>. In interviews with undergraduates who took a foundation year, I have seen that students find it valuable to be able to go straight from a foundation year to a degree course at the same university. And again, experiencing university life – rather than delaying it by going to college – was also important to them.</p>
<p>What’s more, the cost of the foundation year did not discourage the students I spoke to. One said that the fee should be lower than the yearly cost of a degree course, not because the experience was poor value but because it did not contribute to their degree qualification. </p>
<h2>The debt premium</h2>
<p>Students from poorer backgrounds face a “debt premium” – they <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/909623/Impact_of_the_student_finance_system_on_disadvantaged_young_people.pdf">borrow more money</a> to afford to study. </p>
<p>The foundation year adds to this premium, even though this route allows students to overcome structural barriers or poor educational experiences. But government actions that may limit the availability of these courses do not reflect the value of foundation year students and their unique contribution to the higher education sector.</p>
<p>In order to be able to to charge the maximum fee for courses, universities have to <a href="https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/promoting-equal-opportunities/access-and-participation-plans/">demonstrate</a> how they increase access opportunities for underrepresented groups. Foundation years are crucial to many university’s plans for doing this. </p>
<p>But given the <a href="https://theconversation.com/universities-call-for-a-tuition-fee-rise-heres-what-that-would-mean-for-students-and-taxpayers-189423">financial challenges</a> facing higher education, universities will have difficult decisions about the financial viability of delivering foundation years. </p>
<p>It is worth bearing in mind that while delivering a foundation year <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1170788/Understanding_the_costs_of_foundation_years_study_research_report.pdf">costs a university</a> around the same as the first year of an undergraduate course, a foundation year requires more pastoral support and contact time with staff, because of the tailored approach needed for a more diverse student body.</p>
<p>Many universities will continue to provide classroom-based foundation years. But some will not, cutting off opportunities for many.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210073/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nathaniel Pickering does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Foundation year students are more likely to be from an underrepresented background.Nathaniel Pickering, Lecturer in Research Evaluation and Student Engagement, Sheffield Hallam UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1385892020-05-20T11:35:20Z2020-05-20T11:35:20ZHow stories of success can help increase diversity among medical students<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/336386/original/file-20200520-152338-1vli7v3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=965%2C60%2C4785%2C3466&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/medical-students-learning-professor-university-244565806">wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>At the turn of the century, the majority of students in UK medical schools were white, male and middle-class. Over the past 20 years, though, there has been success for some groups of students in getting through the doors. </p>
<p>Medical schools have made changes to how they admit students, but there are still barriers to success. An increasing number of women and students from black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds have been admitted to medical school each year. However, there has not been a similar increased representation of students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, which has remained static at about <a href="https://www.medschools.ac.uk/media/2536/selection-alliance-2018-report.pdf">10% of all admissions</a>. </p>
<p>Our research shows that to create diversity in medical schools, we need to reconsider the ways we measure this diversity. By considering the experiences of individual students as well as statistics, we can learn how to create routes to success. </p>
<p>One reason to <a href="https://www.medschools.ac.uk/our-work/selection/selecting-for-excellence">increase the diversity of students</a> admitted to medical school is to increase fairness and equity in educational opportunities for all applicants. Another key reason is to ensure that the future medical workforce will reflect the wide range of backgrounds in the UK population. This will allow the doctors of the future to better meet the healthcare needs of the population they serve. </p>
<p>Making it through the doors of medical school is only one hurdle. There are still challenges to be overcome for students from certain backgrounds in their journey to become a doctor. For example, students from BAME backgrounds are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8279.2011.02060.x">more likely to fail their exams</a> than other students. </p>
<p><a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.2044-8279.2011.02060.x">These statistics</a> are useful to highlight the differences in admissions and academic achievement between groups of students who can be identified by having specific characteristics, such as a BAME background. But they don’t give more information about the reasons behind the differences. We need to look more closely at the complex factors which lead to student success. This will require research which seeks to understand students’ lives and their experiences of medical school.</p>
<h2>Routes to success</h2>
<p>We have surveyed a range of studies to consider the ways research into this issue is conducted. This has led us to make some important recommendations about how these <a href="https://doi.org/10.15694/mep.2020.000084.1">differences can be reduced</a>.</p>
<p>Most of the studies we looked at continued to classify students into a specific category, such as BAME background. The findings are then presented as though they are typical of all students within the category.</p>
<p>But only three studies looked at the experience of high-achieving students who had been classified into a single category such as BAME. It is essential to understand the various factors that have contributed to the academic success of these students. This information can then be used to inform future policies, as well as practices, for improving the experience of students from specific backgrounds. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/336393/original/file-20200520-152284-ru9dbx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/336393/original/file-20200520-152284-ru9dbx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/336393/original/file-20200520-152284-ru9dbx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/336393/original/file-20200520-152284-ru9dbx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/336393/original/file-20200520-152284-ru9dbx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/336393/original/file-20200520-152284-ru9dbx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/336393/original/file-20200520-152284-ru9dbx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Learning about individual students’ routes to success is vital.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/senior-female-patient-listening-doctor-explain-1277411626">Rocketclips, Inc./Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Understanding the factors for success can lead to the development of specific advice services for students from these backgrounds, such as guidance on making medical career choices. The establishment of peer networks and mentors who are students and doctors from a similar background can be very useful.</p>
<h2>Student input</h2>
<p>We also found that only a few studies mentioned that students were actively involved in the research process. Students can be involved in developing questions that are of particular importance to themselves, and can make recommendations for change in how medical schools could improve the learning and support experience of students. A lack of student involvement limits the relevance and value of the findings for future policies and practices. It also restricts the ability of individuals to develop and implement changes that can improve the experiences of all medical school students.</p>
<p>The main findings from our research show that increasing the diversity of students who are accepted to medical school and ensuring their success is still a challenge.</p>
<p>Our recommendations have important implications for all education, including universities, colleges and schools. Each student has their own potential for success and their strengths should be identified and used to improve their own experience, and that of other students. </p>
<p>In schools and colleges, <a href="https://www.ucu.org.uk/media/10385/Transformative_teaching_and_learning_in_further_education_july_2019/pdf/transformativeteachingandlearninginfurthereducationjuly2019">transformational teaching and learning</a> which focuses on the individual aspirations of each student can increase the chances of success for diverse students entering professions like medicine. Once at medical school, students can be supported by mentoring and meeting role models that have successfully navigated the journey through the educational system and beyond.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/138589/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Sandars receives funding from Health Education England North West. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jayne Garner receives funding from the Medical Schools Council.. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Prof Jeremy Brown receives funding from Health Education England North West . </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vicky Duckworth does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>To achieve diversity in medical schools, we need to look at the stories behind the numbers.John Sandars, Professor of Medical Education, Edge Hill UniversityJayne Garner, Senior Lecturer in Medical Education, Edge Hill UniversityJeremy Brown, Professor of Clinical Education, Edge Hill UniversityVicky Duckworth, Professor of Education, Edge Hill UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1300312020-02-27T11:02:01Z2020-02-27T11:02:01ZHow to make universities more inclusive? Hire more working-class academics<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317352/original/file-20200226-24668-1rfbwkb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=67%2C40%2C4425%2C2950&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/female-speaker-giving-presentation-lecture-hall-592565960">Matej Kastelic/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For several years, higher education institutions have been putting in place <a href="https://theconversation.com/universities-in-crisis-why-a-cut-in-tuition-fees-and-longer-loan-period-would-make-most-students-worse-off-118078">widening participation initiatives</a>. These are designed to help address low levels of under-represented students applying to university. Such initiatives have led to <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/widening-participation-in-higher-education">increasing numbers</a> of working-class students going on to higher education. Often, these students are the first in their family to go to university. </p>
<p>Not knowing what to expect at university, some of these students worry they <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/mortarboard/2014/mar/25/working-class-students-russell-group-universities-unwelcome">might not fit in</a>, or that they will not be able to <a href="https://thetab.com/uk/manchester/2017/09/01/middle-class-students-will-never-understand-what-its-like-to-be-working-class-at-university-29344">afford their studies</a>. Others say they have to carefully consider their book purchases and fear they will <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/aug/14/its-easier-if-youre-middle-class-first-generation-students-on-going-to-uni">visibly stand out from the other students</a>. </p>
<p>But <a href="http://www.cambridgescholars.com/experiences-of-academics-from-a-working-class-heritage">research for my latest book</a>, Experiences of Academics from a Working-Class Heritage, revealed that academics from similar working-class backgrounds have a natural and intuitive instinct to quickly recognise working-class students. As such, they are able to empathise and understand the needs and issues these students have.</p>
<p>The working-class academics I spoke with explained that their background gave them the ability to do this. They also revealed how they discreetly observed and connected with working-class students – perhaps by revealing their own background during a one-to-one tutorial – and how they mitigated student fears and anxieties in the classroom and across the campus. </p>
<h2>Looking out for students</h2>
<p>Nearly all the academics I spoke to said they wanted to make the university experience rewarding for their students. They explained that this was done without favour as they felt it important that all students receive a good learning experience. But they were aware of how working-class students might feel on arrival. This was often based on the academics’ own university experiences as a working-class student.</p>
<p>One interviewee explained that they were familiar with how financial struggles or pressures from home could affect the ability to study and attend classes. This could be a result of having child-caring responsibilities or looking after an ailing parent or grandparent. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317356/original/file-20200226-24659-om7j7g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317356/original/file-20200226-24659-om7j7g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317356/original/file-20200226-24659-om7j7g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317356/original/file-20200226-24659-om7j7g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317356/original/file-20200226-24659-om7j7g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317356/original/file-20200226-24659-om7j7g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317356/original/file-20200226-24659-om7j7g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">My research indicates that working-class students and academics avoid top universities.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/concentrated-male-journalist-analyzing-content-book-1018042453">GaudiLab/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Another participant talked about a potential student who was attending a required university day. The applicant did not appear to be comfortable. So the interviewee “made an effort to allay her fears” because she was in the same situation that the interviewee had been in many years ago, and “she had the right to be there, just like everybody else, if she had the grades”. </p>
<p>Other interviewees recalled how they had been told, as teenagers, that they could never study the subject they aspired to because they were from a working-class background. Now, as academics, they encouraged applicants from the same social class to apply for those subjects and not to rule anything out. </p>
<h2>Widening participation</h2>
<p>Almost all of the research participants said they noticed working-class students and felt a strong sense of empathy with them. In particular, they could sense and predict how the students would probably feel while studying at a higher education institution.</p>
<p>Of course, this knowledge is not confined to academics from a working-class background as there are good, intuitive teachers from all social classes. But some common life experiences do not need explaining. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317353/original/file-20200226-24651-zvd5ej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317353/original/file-20200226-24651-zvd5ej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317353/original/file-20200226-24651-zvd5ej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317353/original/file-20200226-24651-zvd5ej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317353/original/file-20200226-24651-zvd5ej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317353/original/file-20200226-24651-zvd5ej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317353/original/file-20200226-24651-zvd5ej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Too many poorer students feel they don’t fit in at university, but working-class academics can help.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/portrait-beautiful-african-american-lady-dark-702802435">garetsworkshop/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is why one way of increasing student diversity is to recruit more academics who are from these backgrounds. Yet social and economic class is not one of the nine protected characteristics included in the Equality Act 2010 and used by employers. This information is there to ensure there is equal opportunity when appointing new staff. As such, there are calls for changes in the employment legislation to address the fact that academics who have a working-class background are better able to “<a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/higher/geraldine-van-bueren-why-we-need-more-working-class-professors-509693.html">recognise and support the particular needs of these students</a>”.</p>
<p>Indeed, the Social Mobility Commission recommends that data about the socio-economic background of employees <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/811045/Elitist_Britain_2019.pdf">should be collected and monitored</a> by employers – in the same way that disability and ethnicity data is.</p>
<p>Until this becomes an established practice, interrogating National Student Surveys remains paramount. It is also important to find out if students prefer to be allocated to (especially in a one-to-one situation) a lecturer or personal academic tutor who is from a similar class. This would help to locate where current good practice lies or predict where future problems might develop. And it would demonstrate universities’ commitment to listening to voices that have previously been unheard.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130031/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carole Binns is affiliated with the 'Association of Working-Class Academics' </span></em></p>Working-class academics can play a key role in boosting student diversity.Carole Binns, Lecturer in the Faculty of Management, Law and Social Sciences, University of BradfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/573712016-08-02T11:16:59Z2016-08-02T11:16:59ZObstacles to social mobility in Britain date back to the Victorian education system<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131635/original/image-20160722-26848-1rkau4e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C204%2C2392%2C1595&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Destined for university: the Victorians created a tiered education system.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cambridge_University,_King%27s_Parade.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Despite the growing number of young people <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/365765/State_of_Nation_2014_Main_Report.pdf">attending university</a>, comparatively few disadvantaged students <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/31384/11-944-higher-education-students-at-heart-of-system.pdf">are accepted</a> into Britain’s most prestigious institutions. Many of the most selective universities have <a href="https://www.offa.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/2016.04-Outcomes-of-access-agreements-monitoring-1.pdf">missed recent targets</a> to improve access, as the least privileged students <a href="http://www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/ICOF-REPORT-2015.pdf">remain more than eight times</a> less likely to gain places than their peers from the most prosperous backgrounds.</p>
<p>The government has made <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-universities-to-deliver-choice-and-opportunity-for-students">recent promises</a> that universities will become “engines” of “social mobility”. Yet a more stratified, less fair university sector seems the likely result of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/new-competitive-landscape-for-higher-education-confirmed-in-white-paper-59494">new competitive landscape</a> announced in the <a href="http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2016-17/highereducationandresearch.html">Higher Education and Research Bill</a> that is currently making its way through parliament. </p>
<p>Of the 13 most selective institutions <a href="http://www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/ICOF-REPORT-2015.pdf">identified</a> by the Sutton Trust in 2015, ten were either founded or significantly reformed in the 19th century. Many of the problems surrounding university access date back to the Victorian era. </p>
<h2>Workers and thinkers</h2>
<p>The Victorians determined the quality and content of teaching according to the class background of students, establishing varied levels of school attainment that <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/317276/RR353_-_The_link_between_secondary_school_characteristics_and_university_participation_and_outcomes_FINAL.pdf">still challenge</a> admissions officers today. The 19th-century school system was organised in relation to the economy, and many more workers than thinkers were required to support the rapid growth of manufacturing. </p>
<p>Under Lord Taunton’s leadership in the 1860s, the <a href="http://www.educationengland.org.uk/history/chapter03.html">Schools Inquiry Commission</a> organised school allocation based on family occupation. Pupils from the most prosperous backgrounds attended the public and first-grade secondary schools, where they prepared for university admission by following an extensive classical education until the age of 18. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131636/original/image-20160722-26841-6g82cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131636/original/image-20160722-26841-6g82cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131636/original/image-20160722-26841-6g82cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131636/original/image-20160722-26841-6g82cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131636/original/image-20160722-26841-6g82cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131636/original/image-20160722-26841-6g82cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131636/original/image-20160722-26841-6g82cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Great Hall at Durham University at the end of the 19th century.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_College,_Durham#/media/File:Great_Hall,_University_College,_Durham.jpg">A. D. White Architectural Photographs, Cornell University Library/wikimedia.com</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Those from the lower-middle classes were to focus on applied subjects until the age of 14. “It is obvious,” stated the Taunton Report, “that these distinctions correspond roughly, but by no means exactly, to the gradations of society”. When the system was re-evaluated in 1895, the Bryce Commission agreed that traditional universities should continue to admit students from the upper and upper-middle classes who had been best prepared for its demands.</p>
<p>Social exclusivity was also central to the model of Victorian higher education outlined by Cardinal Newman in his 1852 lecture series titled <a href="http://www.newmanreader.org/works/idea/index.html">The Idea of a University</a>. Newman’s influential idea of liberal education relied on strict distinctions between applied and non-applied forms of work. </p>
<p>He <a href="http://www.newmanreader.org/works/idea/discourse1.html">emphasised</a> “inutility” and “remoteness from the occupations and duties of life” as important features of an ideal university. A privileged few developed their intellectual faculties amid collegiate surroundings while applied forms of work and knowledge <a href="http://www.newmanreader.org/works/idea/discourse5.html">remained</a> the “duty of the many”. </p>
<h2>Ideas above your station</h2>
<p>Conservative commentators were surprised that so many still aspired towards this elite form of education. As the MP Sir John Gorst <a href="https://archive.org/details/universitiesand01gorsgoog">wrote</a> in 1895: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is remarkable that the desire, even of the poorer workers, for knowledge seems to be directed towards abstract science and general culture, rather than towards those studies which could be turned to practical use in the manufacturing industry. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In his novel <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/153">Jude the Obscure</a>, also written in 1895, Thomas Hardy explored how this traditional university model helped to support existing social hierarchies. The stonemason Jude Fawley pursues his educational dreams at Christminster, a fictional version of Oxford. The letter rejecting his application to “accumulate ideas, and impart them to others” reveals the class bias underpinning his failure. As a “working man”, Jude is told that he would have a “much better chance of success in life by remaining in your own sphere and sticking to your trade”. </p>
<p>The tragedy of Jude’s failure depends on his wholehearted identification with Christminster’s mission as “a unique centre of thought and religion – the intellectual and spiritual granary of this country”. Hardy’s novel shows that the Victorian university was rarely the disinterested institution it appeared to be.</p>
<h2>Access to the marketplace</h2>
<p>University education has become much fairer since 1895. Over <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/458034/HEIPR_PUBLICATION_2013-14.pdf">40% of young people</a> now enter higher education, when <a href="http://www.lse.ac.uk/economics/research/publications/50YearsAfterRobbins.pdf">even in 1963</a> only about four in every 100 young people studied at university. </p>
<p>Yet, the traditional university model still remains associated with <a href="http://www.historyandpolicy.org/policy-papers/papers/the-idea-of-a-university-today">social privilege</a>, distinguished from newer institutions that suffer for their association with what some parts of the media <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/pa/article-3592030/University-changes-announced-criticisms-Mickey-Mouse-courses.html">have called “Mickey Mouse courses”</a>. </p>
<p>The prospects of disadvantaged students at prestigious universities may be harmed by the <a href="https://theconversation.com/understanding-the-increase-in-university-fees-and-what-it-means-for-students-62985">rise of student tuition fees</a> in line with inflation. While the most selective institutions <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/434791/A_qualitative_evaluation_of_non-educational_barriers_to_the_elite_professions.pdf">deliver</a> the best career prospects upon graduation, their high fees and entry requirements may deter students from disadvantaged backgrounds. </p>
<p>To avoid further stratification of the university system, proper financial support must exist to ensure the least wealthy students at in-demand institutions <a href="https://theconversation.com/abolishing-student-grants-and-raising-fees-above-9-000-heaps-more-debt-on-poorest-students-44485">do not suffer</a> from the highest levels of debt. Admission requirements should also be closely considered to <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-british-universities-should-rethink-selecting-students-by-academic-ability-45473">account for different levels of prior attainment</a>. </p>
<p>The drive to create a market out of the university sector must not prompt a return to Victorian principles. A student’s educational prospects should not be determined by their family background.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/57371/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan Memel receives funding from Great Western Research, The National Trust and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.</span></em></p>Problems with who gets access to university date back to the 19th century.Jonathan Godshaw Memel, Postdoctoral researcher and AHRC Cultural Engagement Fellow,, University of ExeterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/535712016-02-10T16:00:02Z2016-02-10T16:00:02ZSocial mobility isn’t just about 18-year-olds: adults need life chances too<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109869/original/image-20160201-32222-1jqy9a0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Universities have experienced a big drop in part-time students.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">R. Gino Santa Maria/www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The prime minister has <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/11436076/Universities-told-to-double-number-of-poorer-students.html">pledged to double</a> the number of students from disadvantaged backgrounds entering higher education by 2020. David Cameron has signalled an all-out attack on poverty and has <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/watch-out-universities-im-bringing-the-fight-for-equality-in-britain-to-you-article-by-david-cameron">thrown down the gauntlet to universities</a> to deliver on social justice.</p>
<p>He will be aware that many universities already have a proud history of widening participation to students from groups traditionally under-represented in higher education. Disadvantaged youngsters <a href="https://www.ucas.com/sites/default/files/ucas-submission-to-the-call-for-evidence-to-the-commission-on-child-poverty-and-social-mobility.pdf">were 70% more likely</a> to enter higher education in 2014 than they were in 2004. </p>
<p>The universities which have had most impact in widening participation include Bolton, Edge Hill, Greenwich, London Metropolitan, London South Bank, Sunderland, Teeside and Wolverhampton. Until 1992, these were all former polytechnics, and are now known as “new” or post-92 universities, which tend to have missions to support students from all backgrounds to succeed.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"693760961463844864"}"></div></p>
<p>I fear, in challenging higher education to address social mobility, the prime minister may be thinking only about more of those ubiquitous 18-year-old school leavers aiming at full-time undergraduate study. But given the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2013/mar/18/higher-education-future-demographic">gradual demographic fall</a> in the number of 18-year-olds since 2011, there will not be enough of these potential students to have a significant impact on aspirations for a more equal society – to say nothing of addressing Britain’s skills shortages.</p>
<p>My <a href="https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/resource/shoe-horned-and-side-lined-challenges-part-time-learners-new-he-landscape">own research</a> suggests the key disadvantaged group on which universities could have a quicker, and more transformative impact, are mature learners who are limited by personal circumstances to part-time study. </p>
<p>These part-time students include everybody from adults who missed out at 18 and aspire for a second chance while working and learners with low or alternative entry qualifications, to poorer learners in low-status jobs – often women who are seeking a transformative life chance to benefit their families.</p>
<p>Their needs cannot be met by the inflexibilities inherent in mainstream full-time higher education. If universities were further given incentives to offer more attractive, flexible and affordable part-time courses, the prime minister’s aspirations for a more equal society could be met through higher education.</p>
<p>Yet the <a href="https://www.hesa.ac.uk/sfr224">most recent data</a> from the Higher Education Statistics Agency demonstrates that the number of students enrolling for UK part-time higher education decreased by 6% between the 2013-14 and 2014-15 academic years. </p>
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<p>The proportion of undergraduates studying part-time continues to fall, and is now down to 25% of the total. This dramatic decline is acutely relevant to Cameron’s pledge: part-timers are the most vulnerable in the sector.</p>
<h2>Securing student opportunity</h2>
<p>The crucial source of funding, which enables many in the higher education sector to support activities to help disadvantaged students to succeed, is the <a href="http://www.hefce.ac.uk/sas/funding/">Student Opportunity Fund</a>. Money from this is distributed to universities in England who charge fees between £6,000 to a maximum £9,000 for full-time students, and £4,500 to £6,750 for <a href="http://university.which.co.uk/advice/student-finance/student-finance-part-time">part-time students</a>.</p>
<p>The fund is used to meet the needs of a wide range of students, recognising that learners from disadvantaged backgrounds are less likely to complete their studies and need customised support. </p>
<p>Learners from disadvantaged backgrounds are less likely to achieve a “good” pass (a first or upper second class honours degree). For example, <a href="http://www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/Year/2015/201521/">last year</a> students from neighbourhoods with the lowest higher education participation rate were 11% less likely to achieve a good degree than those from areas with the highest participation. Mature students are also 11% less likely than younger students to gain a good degree, and part-time students are 18% less likely than full-timers. </p>
<p>All universities offering part-time learning depend on the Student Opportunity Fund. At my own institution, the Open University – where 18% of all new student registrations are from a low socio-economic background – dedicated learner support and inclusive materials are embedded in the student experience. With 16% of our undergraduates declaring a disability, the university also targets them with pre-entry advice and technologies, including specialist equipment to support study independence. This ranges from voice recognition software for physically disabled learners to the conversion of print materials into an electronic form, read out in a synthetic voice, for blind students. </p>
<p>Demands for such support has increased in recent years, as <a href="https://www.hesa.ac.uk/pis/dsa">the number of disabled students across</a> the sector has risen. We are also experiencing far more students presenting mental health issues. My research suggested that characteristics such as disability may overlap with low socio-economic status, as people can be excluded from employment opportunities and reliant on benefits. As a result, students enrol in university with a potentially toxic set of barriers to learning. </p>
<h2>Uncertain future</h2>
<p>Universities are bracing themselves while the Department of Business and Skills (BiS) considers options for higher education funding following the government’s spending review. The annual higher education grant letter from the Higher Education Funding Council for England, which sets out how much state funding universities receive, will have to be sent by May at the latest. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.ianaustin.co.uk/buried_in_the_small_print_school_academies_budget_and_student_opportunities_fund_both_slashed">sector fears</a> that the funding universities receive to attract disadvantaged learners will be restructured, reducing the amount spent on measures to widen participation – including the Student Opportunity Fund – by 50% over the next five years.</p>
<p>The government could address these fears, by safeguarding rather than cutting the fund. There is a pressing need for it. Protecting it will enable universities to support the prime minister’s pledges for a more just society by supporting those universities which enable the most disadvantaged in society to achieve the goals of greater chances in life.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/53571/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Butcher does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Part-time students are some of the most disadvantaged – universities need money to help them.John Butcher, Senior Lecturer/Deputy Director Access Curriculum, The Open UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/460462015-08-19T05:34:26Z2015-08-19T05:34:26ZUniversities remain a hive of inequality – they must do more to attract the excluded<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/91649/original/image-20150812-12348-94s6iq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Fair access and widening participation are a social and economic necessity. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> J. Henning Buchholz/www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The higher education sector in England has gone through some major changes in recent years, from the 2012 rise in tuition fees to £9,000 a year to the more recent decision to allow universities to <a href="http://theconversation.com/now-universities-can-accept-as-many-students-as-they-want-will-there-be-a-free-for-all-in-clearing-45633">accept as many students as they want</a>. Constant policy shifts have kept universities on the move.</p>
<p>One theme that has continued to be a consistent priority throughout these changes has been how to make access to university more equal and fair. I think that now, more then ever, universities need to do more to attract potential applicants from poorer and more diverse backgrounds. </p>
<p>No matter what your political affiliation, all party leaders say that education is a fundamental driver of social mobility. And, in recent years, social mobility through education has been improving. According <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/365765/State_of_Nation_2014_Main_Report.pdf">to figures from the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission</a> (SMCP), headed by my former ministerial colleague, Alan Milburn, a record number of young English people are entering higher education. This year, there <a href="https://www.ucas.com/corporate/news-and-key-documents/news/over-409000-students-already-placed-uk-higher-education-%E2%80%93-3">was a 4% increase</a> in students from the least advantaged backgrounds being placed at UK universities on A-level results day, according to UCAS.</p>
<p>In addition, universities are investing <a href="https://www.offa.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Access-agreements-for-2015-16-key-statistics-and-analysis.pdf">£735m</a> in 2015-16 to widen access by providing support such as bursaries. The SMCP <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/365765/State_of_Nation_2014_Main_Report.pdf">estimates</a> there could be as many as 100,000 more university places and 2m new professional jobs created by 2020, creating even more opportunities. </p>
<p>Businesses and the private sector are also entering the debate on access and diversity. Global accountancy firm <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/ey-firm-says-it-will-not-longer-consider-degrees-or-alevel-results-when-assessing-employees-10436355.html">EY is removing the requirement for a minimum degree classification</a> for graduates and hiding all details of schools and universities from recruiters. EY says the aim is to boost workplace diversity, which it sees as good for business.</p>
<h2>Inequality remains</h2>
<p>But, despite all this positive action and debate, the higher education sector remains a hive of inequality. The controversial decision by the chancellor, George Osborne, to <a href="https://theconversation.com/abolishing-student-grants-and-raising-fees-above-9-000-heaps-more-debt-on-poorest-students-44485">convert maintenance grants to loans</a> is no doubt a backwards step. It affects the poorest in society and risks deterring them from university. <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/jul/30/poorer-students-say-maintenance-grants-essential-for-university">Recent research from the National Union of Students</a> shows that students from poorer backgrounds <a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/comment/opinion/why-maintenance-matters-more-than-tuition-fees/2020022.article">need maintenance support the most</a>. </p>
<p>Such grants have also been one of the most important contributing factors in encouraging students from ethnic minorities and low-income <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/365765/State_of_Nation_2014_Main_Report.pdf">families to apply for university</a>. </p>
<p>Universities must help redress the balance. Financial support is just one aspect, but it is an important one. A robust scheme of grants and bursaries is certainly needed, tailored specifically for those coming from lower socio-economics backgrounds that are still underrepresented across the higher education sector. And more expenditure by universities on outreach is necessary, together with more paid internships. </p>
<p>But financial support alone isn’t the only way universities need to tackle the problem of inequality and diversity. Institutions need to adopt an interdisciplinary approach towards improving access for disadvantaged students and reaching out to them. As a sector, we need to consider and incorporate ideas around teaching and learning, marketing and recruitment and the wider student experience. This includes thinking about how these issues affect students from different socio-economic backgrounds, and about what can be done to help attract them into higher education and nurture and support them once they arrive. </p>
<h2>Ready to teach soft skills</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.suttontrust.com/researcharchive/private-pay-progression/">A recent study by the Sutton Trust</a> charity demonstrated that privately educated UK graduates in high-status jobs earn more than their state school counterparts. It found factors such as the university attended and quality of education were prevalent, but it also suggested non-academic factors and soft skills, such as assertiveness, confidence and presentation skills also had a significant impact. </p>
<p>This is something that universities across the sector need to address. They should investigate how they can help students from more diverse backgrounds develop such skills that will not only benefit them during their studies but once they graduate as well. </p>
<p>University has to appeal to everyone who feels excluded. Ethnicity and socio-economic factors are key issues, but children who have grown up in care, disabled learners, first-generation scholars and mature learners all need to be included in any debate about “widening participation”.</p>
<p>The gender divide also matters. UCAS <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/jan/21/gender-gap-university-admissions-record">figures</a> show the admissions gap between men and women in the sector is growing and at record levels. More women than men are being accepted to university than ever before and it has become as significant as the gap between people from advantaged and disadvantaged economic backgrounds. And it combines in the acute challenge we face around the <a href="http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201415/cmselect/cmeduc/142/142.pdf">poor educational achievements</a> of white, working-class boys.</p>
<h2>The sector must collaborate</h2>
<p>But the most fundamental issue we need to face as a sector is collaboration. The policy and structural changes from government promote competition, so too often universities are working in a silo with regards to inequality and diversity. </p>
<p>Collaboration could take place through regional coordination among universities, colleges and schools to ensure an optimal spread and intensity of outreach activities and events, especially during the early years where interventions can have the highest impact. Universities can also collaborate in sharing insight on how best to recruit, support and ensure the success of less-advantaged students. That means investing in the professional development of the university staff who are working to help widen participation in order to ensure that the sector’s collective understanding grows. </p>
<p>Ultimately, while we might be <a href="https://theconversation.com/now-universities-can-accept-as-many-students-as-they-want-will-there-be-a-free-for-all-in-clearing-45633">in competition</a> for students, celebrating the impact of higher education in transforming lives, improving social mobility and contributing to the economy is something we can all agree on.</p>
<p>To improve fair access across higher education, we must work together by sharing best practice, sharing ideas and, most importantly, sharing responsibility.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/46046/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bill Rammell is a member of the Labour Party and was Minister of State for Higher Education between 2005 and 2008. </span></em></p>The higher education sector must collaborate to reach out to applicants from poor and diverse backgrounds.Bill Rammell, Vice Chancellor and Chief Executive, University of BedfordshireLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/434402015-06-23T05:17:21Z2015-06-23T05:17:21ZScrapping maintenance grants would be final nail in coffin of publicly funded higher education<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/85540/original/image-20150618-23217-10bibh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">On your own from here?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Piggy bank via Karen Roach/www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the wake of the furore surrounding the raising of university tuition fees in England to a maximum of £9,000 a year in 2012, there has been extensive debate on the <a href="https://theconversation.com/hard-evidence-what-happens-to-student-applications-when-university-fees-go-up-39837">size of the debt that students</a> will accrue after three years of university study. </p>
<p>Less attention has been paid to how students and their families manage the costs of accommodation and day-to-day living, and whether these costs deter or disadvantage those from lower income families whose living expenses have, up to now, been offset by maintenance grants.</p>
<p>But the majority Conservative UK government has far-reaching plans for government debt reduction. One public spending cutback measure hinted at in recent weeks is a proposal to phase out the system that provides non-repayable maintenance grants to university students from low-income backgrounds.</p>
<p>A report on <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-33103878">BBC’s Newsnight</a> programme on June 11 suggested that cuts in maintenance grants (as opposed to maintenance loans which do have to be paid back) are almost inevitable, though there has so far been no confirmation from official sources. More could become clear when George Osborne announces his summer budget on July 8.</p>
<p>Suggestions that the maintenance grant may be scrapped – saving the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills around £2 billion a year over three years – are all the more unexpected because few people are aware that there still is a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/student-finance/loans-and-grants">means-tested maintenance grant</a> for students in England. Yet 531,000 higher education students <a href="http://www.slc.co.uk/official-statistics/financial-support-awarded/england-higher-education.aspx">were awarded</a> a maintenance grant in 2014-15. Of these 368,300 were awarded the full grant of £3,387 a year and 122,800 were awarded a partial grant. Therefore around half a million students are likely to be negatively affected by its abolition.</p>
<p>Amid negotiations ahead of the expected spending cuts, the BBC report suggests that proposals to withdraw income-contingent maintenance grants have been on the government’s agenda since 2013, although they were blocked by Nick Clegg, former Liberal Democrat deputy prime minister – presumably for fear of the kind of public outcry that accompanied the £9,000 fees hike and his party’s u-turn on the issue. Now the Conservatives are back in power with an overall majority, there seems no political obstacle to removing maintenance grants.</p>
<p>While the possible scrapping of these grants would certainly hit lower-income students hard, we would argue that the question of its impact on university application rates is a subsidiary one. What is more important is whether implementing such a cut is tantamount to the end of publicly funded education, as it has been historically understood. If so, what are the implications for our notion of equality in educational opportunity?</p>
<p>It seems that the government, while seeking to reduce national public debt, is in practice pursuing policies of increasing private debt, and is prepared to pass off government debts onto those whose families are least likely to be able to afford to repay them.</p>
<h2>Tracking the shift in maintenance costs</h2>
<p>Policies to shift the costs of higher education from the public purse to the private individual pre-date the controversial hike in tuition fees in 2012. Means-tested maintenance grants (familiar to those who went to university between the 1960s and 1990s) were phased out from 1998. A series of alternative measures aimed at supporting poorer students have been in place since that time. The <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7923093.stm">Blair Labour</a> government introduced tuition fees of £1,000 from the 1998-9 academic year, replacing maintenance grants with repayable student loans for all but the poorest students.</p>
<p>In 2001, geographically-targeted means-tested government grants (<a href="http://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/4544">Opportunity Bursaries</a>) were introduced and, in 2003, a national Higher Education Grant of £1,000 a year was rolled out by the Labour government. The income threshold to qualify for these grants was low, and in effect only students in families dependent on benefits were eligible to receive them.</p>
<p>In 2006, they were re-named <a href="http://www.slc.co.uk/media/77443/slcsfr032006.pdf">Higher Education Maintenance Grants</a>. Their level was increased to up to £2,700 a year and eligibility was widened to some extent through the implementation of a higher income threshold. These grants became what are now known as Maintenance Grants.</p>
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<p>Currently, the maximum Maintenance Grant is £3,387 for families with an income below £25,000 per year; there is <a href="https://www.gov.uk/student-finance/loans-and-grants">a sliding scale</a> of decreasing grant payments up to an annual income of £42,000. Students, whatever their family income, are also eligible to apply for repayable Maintenance Loans of up to £5,555 a year (outside London) or £7,751 for those studying in London.</p>
<p>In 2009 the landmark <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browne_Review">Browne Review</a> of higher education was commissioned by the then Labour government. It reported in 2010, after the election of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, under the title: <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/422565/bis-10-1208-securing-sustainable-higher-education-browne-report.pdf">Securing a Sustainable Future for Higher Education</a>. The report, which signalled a further shift towards “user pays” higher education, recommended the removal of the maximum fee universities could charge for tuition. In the event though, the government opted to cap annual tuition fees at £9,000 –- an almost threefold increase on the previous level. These are financed through student loans, repayable after graduation.</p>
<p>The report was somewhat vague on whether it expected living costs to be supported solely through a loans system, or whether grants would be available for those on the lowest incomes. However, Student Maintenance Grants did survive the Browne Review and the government’s subsequent 2011 White Paper, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/31384/11-944-higher-education-students-at-heart-of-system.pdf">Students at the Heart of the System</a>. But their time may now be up.</p>
<h2>Fees and their impact on applications</h2>
<p>Despite concerns that higher levels of debt would deter poorer students from continuing on to university, the evidence collated by the <a href="http://www.suttontrust.com/researcharchive/independent-commission-on-fees-report/">Independent Commission on Fees</a> in (2014), which was set up by the Sutton Trust and drew on UCAS data on university applications and acceptances, suggests that, while application rates for 18 year-olds did slow in 2012, they have since recovered and continue to rise. Application rates for <a href="https://theconversation.com/mature-student-numbers-down-14-as-higher-tuition-fees-bite-18130">mature students fell</a>, however. This suggests that not all poorer students may be as debt averse as it was feared.</p>
<p>Research by Neil Harrison and colleagues at UWE Bristol <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0309877X.2013.778966">throws some light</a> on this issue. They have found that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Counterintuitively, many students from lower social-class backgrounds show positivity about debt as a means of enabling them to access higher-level careers; this is consistent with admissions data following the 2006 increase in tuition fees and student indebtedness. More generally, the mainstream of student attitudes appears to fall between the ‘debt-savvy’ and ‘debt-resigned’ types, with students being relatively well-informed about repayment terms and accepting large-scale indebtedness as ‘normal’, with most students being ‘in the same boat’.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Harrison <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167487014000889">believes</a> that whereas recent research findings suggest that debt may be psychosocial in origin as much as it is a class- or income-related phenomenon, proposals to reduce maintenance grants are nevertheless pernicious.</p>
<p>Like him, we are not convinced that lower-income students will necessarily be put off pursuing higher education if maintenance grants are scrapped. Potential students are aware that they have a better chance of getting a job – and a reasonably paid job – with a degree than without one.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Earnings-by-Degrees-REPORT.pdf">Evidence from the Sutton Trust</a> suggests that, despite the huge increase in young people with a higher education qualification, graduates still have an earnings advantage over non-graduates (though financially advantaged graduates from elite universities enjoy this to the greatest extent). An undergraduate degree also continues to represent an important “positional good” whose individual value may be measured not only in monetary returns but in terms of social standing and public regard.</p>
<h2>More and more into the red</h2>
<p>So, while some students may be deterred by the scrapping of maintenance grants (particularly mature students, who are likely to be more debt-averse) we should not be too surprised if application rates continue to rise if the cuts go ahead. But this is no reason to rejoice.</p>
<p>The cause for real concern is that, having already been burdened with massive debt, students and their families may be expected to go even further “into the red” to compensate for the government’s unwillingness to fund education as a public good. It is already common for undergraduates to combine full-time work, or shift work, with full-time study. It is also clear that parents already have to subsidise the day-to-day living costs of their student offspring, with or without a maintenance grant or loan. </p>
<p>If the proposed cut goes ahead, it will represent another nail in the coffin of publicly funded education. For it seems that the government disapproves of debt only when it is public debt; it is quite prepared to exchange this public debt for private debt incurred by those least able to afford it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/43440/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There are suggestions that grants to help students cover their living costs could be cut.Ann-Marie Bathmaker, Professor of Vocational and Higher Education, University of BirminghamMarion Bowl, Senior Lecturer in Education, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/381292015-02-27T13:32:24Z2015-02-27T13:32:24ZLabour’s £6,000 tuition fee proposals would reverse social mobility<p>The Labour leader, Ed Miliband, has <a href="http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/education-31640592">finally announced</a> details of the party’s long-awaited policy to reduce tuition fees should his party win the election. He said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>From September of next year, the next Labour government will reduce tuition fees from £9,000 to £6,000 meeting our obligations to the next generation. It will benefit those starting courses next year. It will benefit those already at university. The average reduction in the debt will be around £9,000 per student, higher for courses longer than three years. And the national debt, the burden on taxpayers will be cut by £40bn by 2030. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Most of the politicians, civil servants, and analysts who are bickering over how to <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-five-options-for-student-tuition-fees-that-politicians-have-to-choose-from-32847">fund university tuition fees</a> also benefited from free tuition themselves. </p>
<p>When I was an undergraduate at the University College Hospital Medical School back in the early 1970s, my fellow students and I often worried about making ends meet, just like today’s students. Some received additional means-tested financial support and many of us worked in the holidays. But we did not have to find the cash for our tuition fees.</p>
<p>I know why things have changed. It’s obvious. A larger proportion of young people now receive a university education than was the case in my day. A little under 50% of 17 to 30-year-olds <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/347864/HEIPR_PUBLICATION_2012-13.pdf">attend university nowadays</a> – compared to about 5% of us when I was an undergraduate. In some other OECD countries the proportion in higher education is even higher.</p>
<p>Right now no one seems entirely sure how we are to continue to pay for that. And this worries me. Are we seriously going to tell youngsters that we have turned the clock back – and only a tiny percentage of them deserve tertiary education – just because those in power cannot agree on a sustainable funding solution? I certainly hope not.</p>
<h2>Status quo not sustainable</h2>
<p>I can see there is a question about how many graduates we actually need and how many graduate level jobs are available. My answer to that is that we live in a world of global competition for work. We simply cannot afford to have a badly educated workforce in which only a tiny elite of Britons are graduates. Indeed many of our graduates create new enterprises and generate jobs for others.</p>
<p>Proof, if any were needed, of how our overseas economic competitors prize tertiary education, lies in the number of overseas students who come to Britain to study. According to the latest data released by the Office of National Statistics, there were <a href="http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/migration1/migration-statistics-quarterly-report/february-2015/index.html">192,000 people immigrating</a> to the UK to study in the year to September 2014 – students who pay higher fees than our home students do. It is also evident that the emerging, rapidly growing economies in the world are investing heavily in higher education and research, building new universities and racking up spending on science. They know that the future is a knowledge-based economy.</p>
<p>At Sussex, around a third of our 14,000 students come from more than 120 different countries. Unlike <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30570248">some in the present government</a>, we consider our international students to be honoured guests, not immigrants. Britain’s university sector is one of the jewels of our national economic crown and consistently one of our biggest export industries.</p>
<h2>Fee cut will hit outreach</h2>
<p>Before we end up cutting tuition fees without a credible plan for filling the gap we should also remember where this cash is going. Tuition fees are <a href="http://www.hefce.ac.uk/whatwedo/invest/institns/annallocns/fees/#section1">already a maximum of £6,000</a> – which is the figure Labour has proposed to cut them to – unless a university can prove that it is investing generous amounts of cash in attracting students from disadvantaged backgrounds and is supporting them when they get here.</p>
<p>We spend huge amounts on outreach initiatives in schools in Sussex, London and beyond, on bursaries, careers assistance and work placements for the students once they arrive. This is social mobility in action – and it’s producing tangible results.</p>
<p>As vice chancellor, I don’t pay lip service to widening participation. Each of the UK’s 160 universities has to produce detailed and fully-costed plans for how we are going to attract and support students from underrepresented communities. We submit new plans annually to the Office of Fair Access before we receive permission to charge £9,000 per annum. </p>
<p>I can see that the existing tuition fee system is vilified as a bottomless pit of debt for students or a <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30570248">giant bill for tax payers</a> and I can see why. But I do not believe all the arguments stack up. It is absurd to imagine that a huge number of graduates will never earn above the £21,000 a year repayment threshold in the decades after they graduate. Wages have already started to creep up and <a href="http://www.slc.co.uk/media/788364/average_repayment_hmrc_per_year_by_country.pdf">student loan repayments</a> have sped up too.</p>
<h2>Why not a graduate tax?</h2>
<p>With a modicum of effort the existing system could be modified into a graduate tax. It need be no more complicated to collect than income tax or national insurance. We all have to pay tax on our earnings. Why can’t it be done through the tax code? Yes some graduates might flee overseas – but some do anyway. It is easy to exaggerate that danger.</p>
<p>This is the moment for the UK to invest in universities and all political parties seriously positioning themselves for a role in government should make their plans clear and costed before the general election. My dream is of a day when any student who is willing and able can come to university – absolutely regardless of background or wealth. I think the universities are doing their bit. My hope is that the politicians will do theirs.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/38129/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Farthing is a member of the General Medical Council. </span></em></p>Ed Miliband’s pledge to drop fees from £9,000 to £6,000 has been met with alarm by university vice chancellors.Michael Farthing, Vice Chancellor, University of SussexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/363252015-01-19T11:04:01Z2015-01-19T11:04:01ZEnrolments slide further for ‘forgotten’ part-time undergraduates<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/69278/original/image-20150116-5206-hzdywg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Part-time student enrolments have massively fallen across the UK. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/uonottingham/6673308957/sizes/l">unonottingham</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>We were told that the 2012 changes to England’s student funding system would boost the number of part-time students at university. But new <a href="https://www.hesa.ac.uk/sfr210">data</a> released by the Higher Education Statistics Agency confirm that such predictions were wide of the mark. In fact, there were 30% fewer new, part-time, first degree enrolments on undergraduate programmes in 2013-14 than there were in 2011-12.</p>
<p>Prior to 2012, part-time study was rising in popularity. The <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-browne-report-higher-education-funding-and-student-finance">Browne Report</a> into English higher education recommended that those studying for an undergraduate degree part-time should be given the same access to funding, proportionately, as those studying full-time. The previous method of up-front fees, it claimed, “put people off from studying part-time and stopped innovation”. </p>
<p>The subsequent government white paper, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/higher-education-students-at-the-heart-of-the-system--2">Students at the Heart of the System</a>, accepted Browne’s recommendations about finance for part-time study and went further still, promising “a more diverse sector with more opportunities for part-time or accelerated courses, sandwich courses, distance learning and higher-level vocational study”. According to free-market logic, with universities deregulated and therefore more responsive to student demand, flexible learning would become the norm and part-time enrolments would rise.</p>
<h2>Big drop in part-time students</h2>
<p>The graph below tells a different story. The annual number of new students enrolling part-time on a first degree fell by 15,820 (20.3%) in 2012-13, then by a further 8,005 (12.88%) in 2013-14. As a result, the proportion of all new undergraduate students that are enrolling on a part-time basis has dropped from 14.11% to 10.37%.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/69372/original/image-20150119-14475-1l6o96r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/69372/original/image-20150119-14475-1l6o96r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/69372/original/image-20150119-14475-1l6o96r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/69372/original/image-20150119-14475-1l6o96r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/69372/original/image-20150119-14475-1l6o96r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/69372/original/image-20150119-14475-1l6o96r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/69372/original/image-20150119-14475-1l6o96r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/69372/original/image-20150119-14475-1l6o96r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>The slide is a cause for concern because many part-time students are “from backgrounds under-represented at universities”, according to the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/higher-education-students-at-the-heart-of-the-system--2">white paper</a>. They are the “<a href="http://www.academia.edu/4742927/Part-time_undergraduate_student_funding_and_financial_support_in_England">forgotten</a>” group in higher education, their absence not receiving the attention it might because of a tendency for public discourses to <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/jan/31/university-applications-record-high-ucas">focus</a> on more positive trends among young, full-time students. </p>
<p>As the second graph shows, although enrolment rates for new, full-time, first degree undergraduates dipped immediately after the fee rise, they recovered in 2013-14. This recovery allows claims to be made that higher fees do not deter demand for higher education. Applications from lower socio-economic students also appear to have <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/27/higher-fees-dont-mean-fewer-working-class-students-look-at-the-uk-for-proof">risen</a> within this group since 2012. However, enrolment rates for new, part-time, first degree undergraduates have not recovered from their dip.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/69373/original/image-20150119-14492-c6q016.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/69373/original/image-20150119-14492-c6q016.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/69373/original/image-20150119-14492-c6q016.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/69373/original/image-20150119-14492-c6q016.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/69373/original/image-20150119-14492-c6q016.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/69373/original/image-20150119-14492-c6q016.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/69373/original/image-20150119-14492-c6q016.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>Even for full-time students, it may be premature to hail the 2012 system an unqualified success. A lack of meaningful labour market alternatives to higher education may skew the figures for the current crop of students. The number of young people choosing to study abroad, though still lower than leaders of independent schools <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/uk-students-are-shunning-home-universities-to-study-abroad-headteachers-claim-9976025.html">imply</a>, continues to <a href="https://twitter.com/UniversitiesUK/status/555315432111222784">rise</a>. But, as a former leader of the National Union of Students Aaron Porter <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-30684462">points out</a>, the main reason to be cautious is that the data relied upon for good-news participation narratives generally exclude the huge number of students who are not full-time.</p>
<h2>Why are part-time students disappearing?</h2>
<p>Claire Callender, a higher education policy researcher at Birkbeck College, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2011/mar/29/student-loans-part-time-undergraduates">notes</a> that part-time students face problems with eligibility criteria, and that employers may be increasingly reluctant to fund higher education courses as fees rise. Campaigns by the government and by individual universities may implicitly target the “typical” (young, full-time) student.</p>
<p>Drives like Universities UK’s “<a href="http://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/highereducation/Pages/PartTimeStudyCampaign.aspx#.VLfau8m8ra8">Part-Time Matters</a>” aim to address the problem through clearer communication to those considering part-time study. Yet opportunities are not distributed equally between institutions – and more selective universities may find part-time students limit the speed with which they can launch and withdraw degree programmes, as market forces ostensibly demand.</p>
<h2>Burden of fees</h2>
<p>The effect of higher fees on part-time students is also poorly understood. It could be that those students most likely to be part-time are also those most likely to worry about placing themselves in substantial debt. The Sutton Trust charity <a href="http://www.suttontrust.com/researcharchive/payback-time/">demonstrated</a> that the 2012 student loan system requires that graduates pay off their debt for longer than under the previous system, and that they repay more in total. </p>
<p>Budding part-time students may be deterred disproportionately, especially if their opportunity cost is greater because they already have work. Cost-benefit analyses soon become less straightforward, and the “graduate premium”, so often <a href="http://ukrecruiter.co.uk/2014/07/31/worth-going-university/">cited</a> by advocates of the 2012 system, becomes less directly relevant.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/higher-education-students-at-the-heart-of-the-system--2">government white paper</a> characterised the 2012 funding changes as “a major step in terms of opening up access” and predicted that “up to around 175,000” part-time students would benefit. In reality, the <a href="https://www.hesa.ac.uk/dox/pressOffice/sfr210/071277_student_sfr210_1314_table_2.xlsx">opposite</a> has happened. This fall in part-time undergraduate enrolments, if not reversed, will have significant consequences for the make-up of higher education and, in due course, for the nation’s workforce.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/36325/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven Jones does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>We were told that the 2012 changes to England’s student funding system would boost the number of part-time students at university. But new data released by the Higher Education Statistics Agency confirm…Steven Jones, Senior Lecturer, Manchester Institute of Education, University of ManchesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/349392014-12-23T06:06:34Z2014-12-23T06:06:34ZFamily background more important for a good graduate job in the UK than Germany<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/67680/original/image-20141218-31034-1mwebr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Hurrah! But wait till you get to the office.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/aluedtke/8033498840/in/photolist-deTMjG-8E715f-bz5pji-aMLS7n-bDD4SZ-aSHrZM-aQJ7oT-aSHrUt-aUUCPz-aPMd5r-eW1NYW-aNLn9i-bjEAnG-aRN1Yv-bfGX8r-bbK9bD-aTNdmH-7qikdH-aZx2in-aXDNDa-by4RmD-bysGMz-bcH2x6-bAXGfr-bdEHLV-b5qUka-ePQMGS-cgCPCb-bpgGiy-bmYahs-wYB1L-bvmXSg-bwEo3e-b393iB-beLDjX-bCz4YE-cVeXiY-bnqSNE-dRaf1t-nJYohj-cVxzqm-33fGbC-5xeYfm-cVeXvQ-aYGWkZ-b1xJkx-aYGWwB-fiB4qW-pC7yq1-2pmDqC">aluedt</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The expansion of higher education in the UK has been driven by a political desire to increase economic growth and to promote social mobility at the same time by drawing more graduates from a larger pool of talent. Yet evidence shows that despite the growing number of people graduating from university, <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-4446.2007.00165.x/abstract">social inequalities persist in job opportunities for young people</a>. </p>
<p>Comparing the situation in the UK and Germany is a useful way of understanding the ways through which graduates from higher social backgrounds get better jobs when they finish university. The two countries differ in the structure of their education systems and in the strength of the link between education and the labour market. </p>
<p>Germany has a highly selective education system based on early selection into vocational and academic education tracks and strong links between education and the world of work. A small proportion of secondary school students, from academic schools only, enter the higher education system: only 30% of people at the typical graduation age graduate from university in Germany <a href="http://www.oecd.org/edu/eag2013%20%28eng%29--FINAL%2020%20June%202013.pdf">compared to 55% in the UK</a>. For those who graduate, the transition to the labour market tends to be smooth and their qualifications tend to closely match their occupations.</p>
<p>In the UK, the education systems are less strongly differentiated and higher education is more inclusive. But links between higher education qualifications and occupational positions are relatively loose. This means that the capacity of educational qualifications to indicate applicants’ competence tends to be weaker in the UK than in Germany. Issues of over-supply of graduates and skills mismatch <a href="http://wes.sagepub.com/content/27/6/952">have developed</a> in more recent years.</p>
<h2>Social inequalities in job markets</h2>
<p>These institutional differences affect social inequalities in graduate jobs. The German education system with its strong vocational component – especially its apprenticeship system – is often <a href="https://theconversation.com/german-apprenticeships-are-built-on-a-cohesive-national-plan-not-ad-hoc-partnerships-23210">considered as a model</a> to follow by other countries, including the UK. But <a href="https://www.mpib-berlin.mpg.de/en/media/2010/01/educational-inequality-in-germany">much research</a> has shown that the German system is also very unequal because less advantaged pupils are more likely to be diverted away from higher education into vocational tracks. </p>
<p>In our forthcoming study in the European Sociological Review, we compared graduates’ occupational outcomes in the UK and Germany by using data from a European survey on tertiary graduates, <a href="http://www.reflexproject.org">the “Reflex” study</a>. </p>
<p>Our findings confirm that UK graduates are a more socially heterogeneous group than German graduates: students with less-educated parents (our social-background measure) enter higher education more frequently in the UK than in Germany. But graduates’ chances of achieving professional and managerial occupations in their first job are more strongly dependent on their social background in the UK than in Germany. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/67684/original/image-20141218-31037-1dumr2u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/67684/original/image-20141218-31037-1dumr2u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67684/original/image-20141218-31037-1dumr2u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67684/original/image-20141218-31037-1dumr2u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67684/original/image-20141218-31037-1dumr2u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67684/original/image-20141218-31037-1dumr2u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67684/original/image-20141218-31037-1dumr2u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Where is it easier to climb the career ladder?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/s/job+ladder/search.html?page=2&thumb_size=mosaic&inline=103782584">Man on ladder via Sergey Nivens/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>These differences in graduate occupations between those from different social backgrounds may be explained by differences in higher education choices and experiences. Our results showed that the social gap in entering highly-paid professional and managerial occupations is partly explained by differences in a student’s choice of subject and university, more so in Germany than in the UK. Significant social inequalities still remain among UK graduates (but not German graduates) after taking these differences into account. </p>
<h2>The impact of family background</h2>
<p>Compared to Germany, our results suggest there is a less meritocratic job selection process in the UK. Family resources are likely to be more important in the UK than in Germany because competition among graduates is strong and there is an absence of tight links between education and the labour market. In such a situation, graduates’ families may provide useful networks as well as social skills that help those from more privileged backgrounds acquire better occupations.</p>
<p>But these gaps even out after time. When analysing occupations five years after graduation, we found that the social inequalities in entering high professional and managerial occupations are reduced in both the UK and Germany. At this point, they are primarily explained by differences in university choices – particularly in subject choices. This suggests that more meritocratic criteria in the job market emerge once employers have direct information about individuals’ work performance and experience.</p>
<h2>Is Germany more meritocratic?</h2>
<p>On the whole, German society is <a href="http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199258451.do">less socially mobile</a> than UK society. But the mechanisms by which social inequalities permeate through into graduates’ chances of getting a good job are different. </p>
<p>In Germany, social inequalities are transmitted mainly via education, both through early selection into an academic or vocational track and through the choice of subject a student makes. In the UK, inequalities are only partly transmitted via education with family playing a larger part. </p>
<p>This suggests that policies in the UK promoting the expansion of higher education to more disadvantaged groups may not be enough to promote social mobility if the job market does not operate on a purely meritocratic basis. For this to to happen, an essential condition is for stronger links to be established between educational qualifications and occupational positions. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Next read: <a href="https://theconversation.com/german-apprenticeships-are-built-on-a-cohesive-national-plan-not-ad-hoc-partnerships-23210">German apprenticeships are built on a cohesive national plan, not ad hoc partnerships</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/34939/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cristina Iannelli receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council; grant number: ES/K006460/1.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Markus Klein receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council; grant number: ES/K006460/1.</span></em></p>The expansion of higher education in the UK has been driven by a political desire to increase economic growth and to promote social mobility at the same time by drawing more graduates from a larger pool…Cristina Iannelli, Professor of Education and Social Stratification, The University of EdinburghMarkus Klein, AQMeN research fellow, The University of EdinburghLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/305932014-09-10T05:29:12Z2014-09-10T05:29:12ZAfter the crash, who owns the British university in 2014?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/58360/original/2rnzg32w-1409931478.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Who owns the university after the crash?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/simononly/7988426445/sizes/l">simononly</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>By international standards, British universities have extraordinarily high levels of autonomy. They control all of their assets, they employ their own staff, renew their own leadership and governors and can enter freely into contracts. They are formally masters of their own fate.</p>
<p>In practice, of course, this autonomy has gone along with dependence on <a href="http://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/highereducation/Documents/2013/FundingEnvironmentForUniversities.pdf">government-originated contracts</a> for teaching, research and other services, that impose their own conditions. As a consequence, higher education institutions have learned to lobby – individually and collectively – for their share of public funding.</p>
<p>In 2008, I wrote an optimistic piece for the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) answering the question: “<a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/.U9su-s08gVk#.VAnD7WPp_Io">Who owns the university</a>?” My rather jolly conclusion was: “Nobody owns the university for ever, but we can all own it from time to time”.</p>
<p>That was just before the global financial collapse. There have been several consequences of the ensuing “age of austerity” for the global funding of the sector and the strategic direction of universities. Government has sought to cut its recurrent investment while it has in fact simultaneously increased and deferred its liabilities. Special initiatives other than the most politically sensitive, such as trying to widen the intake of people going to university, have dried up. </p>
<p>There has been a <a href="http://www.hepi.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/2013-HEPI-Annual-Lecture.pdf">heated, largely unscholarly, debate</a> about whether or not the British higher education sector is losing a global race. All of this has created a paradox (mirrored in advanced higher education systems around the world): as government has sought to invest less it has come to intervene more. And there have been some rapid and probably irreversible developments in university autonomy, especially since the 2008 crash. </p>
<h2>‘Voucherisation’ and its discontents</h2>
<p>What has happened to teaching is often described as “privatisation”; in practice it has been the opposite. First there is the <a href="http://www.publicfinance.co.uk/features/2014/06/higher-and-higher/">voucherisation of undergraduate courses</a> (except in Scotland). In essence, the government is paying up-front the fees for all full-time undergraduates in English, Welsh and Northern Irish institutions who originate in the European Union. It will then seek to get this investment back through the various countries’ tax systems on an income-contingent basis. </p>
<p>Unless and until that money is repaid (and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-can-defuse-the-student-loan-time-bomb-30990">estimates of recovery</a> have now fallen below the costs of the system that this regime was designed to replace) each of these students is in effect a state-sponsored scholar. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the government’s only remaining fiscal control has been through overall student numbers, shortly <a href="https://theconversation.com/abolishing-cap-on-student-numbers-is-a-good-use-of-government-money-24430">to be lifted</a>. So long as these have been restricted, there is no incentive for institutions to do anything other than charge the maximum fee allowable, currently £9,000. </p>
<p>A plan for funding expansion by selling off the loan book associated with the previous fee regime <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/jul/20/vince-cable-cabinet-tensions-scrap-student-loan-sell-off">has been abandoned</a>. Now the latest proposal from the former universities minister is to <a href="https://theconversation.com/taking-on-student-debt-would-be-a-corruption-of-university-ideals-30125">get the universities themselves to share the risk</a> by taking on student’s debt. </p>
<p>Other funding for teaching is restricted to courses prioritised by government itself as “<a href="http://www.hefce.ac.uk/whatwedo/crosscutting/sivs/">strategic and vulnerable subjects</a>”. This continues the long tradition of trying to buck the student market through supply-side interventions in favour of science, technology, engineering and mathematical subjects.</p>
<h2>“For-profits” to the rescue?</h2>
<p>The government’s cavalry over the hill was intended to be the relatively new, for-profit section of the private sector. It was thought this would be lower-cost, more market-responsive, and would widen participation in higher education at minimal expense. As a result, regulatory bars on academic governance, degree-awarding powers, university title and corporate ownership <a href="http://www.hepi.ac.uk/2011/05/05/private-providers-in-uk-higher-education-some-policy-options/">were all systematically lowered</a>.</p>
<p>Many of these new institutions – some appearing overnight – immediately began sucking in student-based “vouchers” in return <a href="https://theconversation.com/more-regulation-still-needed-to-prevent-cashpoint-colleges-27293">for woefully inadequate provision</a>. The results were so disastrous that the government had to call a halt to funding their registered students. This is almost exactly what had happened with New Labour’s <a href="http://www.nao.org.uk/report/individual-learning-accounts/">Individual Learning Accounts</a> only just over a decade earlier. </p>
<p>Not only had ministers and their officials failed to look back, but they also failed to look abroad. <a href="http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/government-guilty-of-abject-failure-over-for-profits-policy/2014747.article">All of these lessons</a> could have been easily gleaned from the experience with federally funded students of for-profit institutions in the USA.</p>
<h2>Sub-prime higher ed</h2>
<p>The result has been the relentless march of debt – even if repayment is significantly deferred. This has moral as well as economic consequences. Some opinion leaders, including the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-26338661">politicians principally responsible</a> have actively encouraged student debtors to take on the debt on the understanding that it will in effect be written off. </p>
<p>This is not far away from the circumstances of the causes of the 2008 crash: mortgage lenders in the USA described serial re-mortgaging as a bet you couldn’t lose, because of the ineluctable appreciation of property values. Headline writers saw the analogy early: <a href="http://nypost.com/2010/06/06/subprime-goes-to-college/">“Sub-prime goes to College”</a>, wrote the New York Post in 2010. </p>
<p>Another relatively unsung, negative consequence of this state penetration of the system is its homogenisation. British political discussions about funding higher education always converge on the needs and support of younger, full-time participants, living and studying away from home. </p>
<p>The latest coalition settlement <a href="http://www.hefce.ac.uk/media/hefce/content/heinengland/2014report/HEinEngland_2014.pdf">has led to the melting away</a> of part-time and mature entrants, as well as a dramatic fall in post-graduate enrolments. The UK is in danger of losing its position as <a href="http://www.niace.org.uk/lifelonglearninginquiry/docs/IFLL-Sector-Paper8.pdf">the most diverse system in Europe</a> by level and mode of study, and by breadth of participation.</p>
<h2>Research – and a Faustian pact</h2>
<p>In terms of research funding, there is a similar sense of greater rather than less government involvement as the funder of last resort. </p>
<p>First, there is a professional consensus that the funding of science is heading for the cliff-edge. The Learned Societies are unanimous that the <a href="https://royalsociety.org/%7E/media/policy/Publications/2013/scientific-research-funding/2013-05-20-science-research-funding.pdf">public purse must carry</a> the strain. British industry has always been reluctant to fill the gap and austerity has reinforced this.</p>
<p>The price of government support has been a Faustian Pact: university research must be “useful”, and rapidly so. The <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2013/oct/28/jonathan-wolff-research-excellence-framework">biting of the “impact” apple</a> as part of the current assessment of the quality of university research – accounting for 20% of the scores in the current <a href="http://www.ref.ac.uk/">Research Excellence Framework</a> – is a token of this. </p>
<p>The silver lining in this context is the capacity of top researchers to subvert both institutional and national strategies. At the very highest levels of research achievement, bottom-up, multi-institutional, <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v497/n7451/full/497557a.html">cross-national networks increasingly rule</a>. Top research is probably best placed to prosper in the new university universe, but at the price of pulling up the ladder on a worthy and productive mainstream.</p>
<h2>Whose system is it anyway?</h2>
<p>All of this leads to the critical question of public confidence: whose system is this, anyway? One of the most dangerous outcomes has been a widespread confusion of reputation and quality. Students have learned, for example, that prestigious employers continue to screen job applicants by the institutions they have studied in. They <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2012/sep/05/students-choose-prestigious-universities">will choose these</a> over courses they might find more satisfying and better taught. </p>
<p>The Russell Group’s self-promotion as representing the best of the system has been uncritically accepted by both government and the media. The empirical problem is <a href="http://www.hepi.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Only-Connect-AS-PUBLISHED.pdf">that it doesn’t</a>. </p>
<p>Well-qualified, non-standard entrants who opt for courses outside a small number of “leading research universities” are dismissed by the country’s leading charitable group on widening participation – the Sutton Trust – as <a href="http://www.suttontrust.com/researcharchive/wasted-talent-attrition-rates-high-achieving-pupils-school-university/">“wasted talent”</a>. </p>
<p>At the same time, various inter-generational tensions have intensified. Demand for higher education has <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/education-28772974">shown no signs of abating</a>, even while the “underemployment” moral panic (“you’re better off without a degree”) intensifies. Government policy identifies potential solely with school examination grades, for example by <a href="http://www.ucas.com/how-it-all-works/undergraduate/understanding-student-number-controls">de-restricting university recruitment</a> of those with high A Level scores. It thereby undermines its own intentions of driving social mobility by diversifying the recruitment to what it sees as “top universities”.</p>
<h2>After 2015</h2>
<p>The most pressing political priority is the unspoken understanding that that the arrangements for fees and funding are not sustainable. As we approach an election in May 2015 that is <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jul/21/ed-davey-liberal-democrats-coalition-labour-general-election-2015">likely to lead to further coalition government</a>, the main parties are all paralysed by the question of what to do about higher education. </p>
<p>The big question after the election will be “what on earth have we done?” Unpicking the current settlement will be hard enough; finding an alternative around which consensus could be built at present seems <a href="http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/comment/opinion/ideology-the-enemy-of-a-sane-funding-system/2014816.article">simply too hard</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/58361/original/2xnpsqq8-1409931877.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/58361/original/2xnpsqq8-1409931877.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58361/original/2xnpsqq8-1409931877.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58361/original/2xnpsqq8-1409931877.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58361/original/2xnpsqq8-1409931877.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58361/original/2xnpsqq8-1409931877.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58361/original/2xnpsqq8-1409931877.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Humboldt was right: the university needs “freedom and loneliness”</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/23575499@N04/5107090064/sizes/l">andreas.zachmann</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Historically, universities have always been more comfortable fulfilling a major role within civil society than as instruments of state policy, and so it should be. All around the world, universities that align themselves too closely with state leadership <a href="https://theconversation.com/facing-up-to-the-c-word-corruption-in-higher-education-23854">have come to undermine</a> their core values.</p>
<p>The big story here is about how the UK state wants to withdraw (<a href="http://www.smf.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Publication-Robbins-Revisited-Bigger-and-Better-Higher-Education-David-Willetts.pdf">so it says</a>) but has become more and more entwined. It now “owns” and directs more of the enterprise than it did before 2008, despite protestations to the contrary. </p>
<p>The response from the higher education sector could be best characterised as truculent passivity. Universities are temporarily in reasonable financial shape. But their leaders know, in their hearts, that this situation is hugely unstable. One of the biggest fears is of a <a href="https://theconversation.com/universities-need-more-than-a-pledge-to-reduce-student-fees-25186">partisan downward bidding war</a> on the maximum fee they are allowed to charge students. </p>
<p>The classic statement of university autonomy is that of Prussian philosopher 18th century reformer Wilhelm von Humboldt: that the university will best serve society in “<a href="https://iris.ucl.ac.uk/iris/publication/215874/1">freedom and loneliness</a>”.
This case needs to be put again, and urgently. It will have to be led by the universities themselves, and it will take collective courage.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/30593/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Watson is Professor of Higher Education and Principal of Green Templeton College at the University of Oxford. He is a Trustee of the the Nuffield Foundation.</span></em></p>By international standards, British universities have extraordinarily high levels of autonomy. They control all of their assets, they employ their own staff, renew their own leadership and governors and…David Watson, Professor of Higher Education and Principal, Green Templeton College, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/310342014-09-02T13:14:10Z2014-09-02T13:14:10ZHard Evidence: are more older people going to university?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/58011/original/v675khz7-1409653962.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Level-headed. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/uonottingham/6673304963/sizes/l">uonottingham</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Halls full of 18-year-old freshers running riot? Bragging tales of gap year misadventure? Older students starting a university course can sometimes find it hard to fit in. But a growing number of mature students are now applying to study at university. But who are they, and what does this rising trend in applications mean for universities?</p>
<p>According to the <a href="http://www.ucas.com/system/files/ucas_2014_application_rate_jan_deadline2.pdf">Universities and Colleges Admissions Service</a>, 2014 has seen the continuation of a small but steady annual increase in application rates to university from people older than 21.</p>
<p>But there is a difference between the number of people applying to university and starting a degree. While the application rate has been rising slowly, the number of first degree entrants has actually fallen very slightly in recent years. Yet early signs from this year’s clearing system show that as of August 29, there has been a <a href="http://www.ucas.com/sites/default/files/29-aug-14-age-all.pdf">6% increase</a> in the number of mature students over 25 placed on university courses since A Level results were announced.</p>
<p>Around a third of UK-domiciled first degree entrants are mature students. This proportion has remained reasonably constant over the last decade. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57891/original/vxy6f5jk-1409582784.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57891/original/vxy6f5jk-1409582784.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57891/original/vxy6f5jk-1409582784.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57891/original/vxy6f5jk-1409582784.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57891/original/vxy6f5jk-1409582784.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57891/original/vxy6f5jk-1409582784.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=656&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57891/original/vxy6f5jk-1409582784.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=656&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57891/original/vxy6f5jk-1409582784.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=656&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">% of first year first degree UK-domiciled undergraduate students (full and part-time) by age.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">HESA, Students in Higher Education Institutions</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is somewhat remarkable given the changes observed in the higher education sector over the same period, in particular rising fees and the lifting of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/abolishing-cap-on-student-numbers-is-a-good-use-of-government-money-24430">cap on the numbers of students</a> with good A level grades that universities can admit. The latter change is most likely to attract extra young entrants with traditional entry qualifications, thus putting downward pressure on the proportion of mature students in the overall student body. </p>
<h2>Student composition and background</h2>
<p>Published data on the whole mature student population across all UK universities is difficult to find. But we can piece together a picture of a group of students who differ from their younger counterparts in terms of socio-economic background and university experience.</p>
<p>Mature students cover a wide age range. In 2012-13, 34% of mature students staring a new course were in the 21-24 age range, compared with 22% in the 25-29 group and 43% in the oldest category of 30 and older. </p>
<p>But these figures conceal a large difference in the age composition of full-time and part-time students. There are fewer older full-students (see first pie chart) than there are part-time students (second pie chart). Much of the published data comparing mature and young students refers only to full-time students.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57897/original/bknhgrpd-1409585096.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57897/original/bknhgrpd-1409585096.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57897/original/bknhgrpd-1409585096.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57897/original/bknhgrpd-1409585096.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57897/original/bknhgrpd-1409585096.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57897/original/bknhgrpd-1409585096.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57897/original/bknhgrpd-1409585096.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57897/original/bknhgrpd-1409585096.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">% of full-time mature first year undergraduates by age.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">HESA, Students in Higher Education Institutions, Table H 2012/13</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57899/original/m5j2rmmg-1409585274.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57899/original/m5j2rmmg-1409585274.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57899/original/m5j2rmmg-1409585274.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57899/original/m5j2rmmg-1409585274.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57899/original/m5j2rmmg-1409585274.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57899/original/m5j2rmmg-1409585274.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57899/original/m5j2rmmg-1409585274.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57899/original/m5j2rmmg-1409585274.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">% of part-time mature first year undergraduates by age.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">HESA, Students in Higher Education Institutions, Table H 2012/13</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Experience at university</h2>
<p>Mature students are more likely to study on a part-time basis than young students: in 2012-13, 91.5% of part-time first degree entrants were mature, while only 21.1% of those starting full-time courses were mature students. They also choose different subjects compared to their young colleagues. </p>
<p>In particular, the percentage of mature entrants taking studies allied to medicine (which includes nursing) is considerably larger than younger students. Smaller differences can be seen in education and computer sciences. In contrast, the sciences (biological, physical and mathematical) and history and creative arts attract smaller percentages of mature students.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57901/original/jgtmwyrx-1409586042.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57901/original/jgtmwyrx-1409586042.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57901/original/jgtmwyrx-1409586042.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57901/original/jgtmwyrx-1409586042.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57901/original/jgtmwyrx-1409586042.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57901/original/jgtmwyrx-1409586042.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57901/original/jgtmwyrx-1409586042.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57901/original/jgtmwyrx-1409586042.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Subject of entrants to full-time first degree courses, 2012-13.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.hesa.ac.uk/pis/urg">HESA, UKPIs: Widening participation of under-represented groups, tables SP2 and SP3, 2012/13</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Mature students are also less likely than young students to study at an older, pre-1992 university. The lead taken by the new universities in attracting mature students may be a consequence of the broad range of courses on offer. These might be particularly attractive to students with <a href="http://www.nus.org.uk/PageFiles/12238/2012_NUS_millionplus_Never_Too_Late_To_Learn.pdf">non-traditional entry qualifications</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57902/original/tx578z6s-1409586296.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57902/original/tx578z6s-1409586296.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57902/original/tx578z6s-1409586296.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57902/original/tx578z6s-1409586296.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57902/original/tx578z6s-1409586296.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57902/original/tx578z6s-1409586296.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57902/original/tx578z6s-1409586296.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57902/original/tx578z6s-1409586296.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Full-time first degree entrants by type of university, 2012-13</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.hesa.ac.uk/pis/urg">HESA</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Higher drop-out rates</h2>
<p>What then are the challenges to universities presented by mature students? Early research has suggested that older students may be less likely to complete their course than young students, although this result can vary <a href="http://www.research.lancs.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/interuniversity-variations-in-undergraduate-noncompletion-rates-a-statistical-analysis-by-subject-of-study%280babe183-d926-4fb3-9561-bc2b57e8fe4f%29/export.html">by subject</a> or <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272775704000962">by gender</a>. </p>
<p>An examination of recent data suggests that the non-continuation rate at university is certainly much higher among mature students than younger ones, but in both cases the rate has fallen in recent years, and more rapidly among mature students. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57903/original/wp9745zz-1409586647.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57903/original/wp9745zz-1409586647.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57903/original/wp9745zz-1409586647.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57903/original/wp9745zz-1409586647.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57903/original/wp9745zz-1409586647.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57903/original/wp9745zz-1409586647.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57903/original/wp9745zz-1409586647.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57903/original/wp9745zz-1409586647.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">% of students not completing their first academic year.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.hesa.ac.uk/pis/noncon">HESA</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Returning to education is likely to cause challenges for mature students: picking up studies after a break, integrating with young students with different life experiences, and coping with financial problems are <a href="http://www.nus.org.uk/PageFiles/12238/2012_NUS_millionplus_Never_Too_Late_To_Learn.pdf.">just a few of the difficulties</a>. Universities should be aware of this and offer the support to maintain their participation in higher education.</p>
<p>But for those who do stay the course, higher education can prove to be a highly positive experience: 58% of those aged 25 and older <a href="https://www.hesa.ac.uk/pr/3233-statistical-first-release-205">were in full-time employment</a> within six months of graduation, compared with 55% of those aged 24 and under. This small difference in full-time employment between mature and young first degree graduates has persisted for the past six years. </p>
<p>The diverse backgrounds of mature students contribute to the richness of university life. This fits with the <a href="http://www.hefce.ac.uk/whatwedo/wp/">government’s push</a> to extend the opportunities of university education to more people. </p>
<hr>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/hard-evidence">Hard Evidence</a> is a series of articles in which academics use research evidence to tackle the trickiest public policy questions.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/31034/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jill Johnes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Halls full of 18-year-old freshers running riot? Bragging tales of gap year misadventure? Older students starting a university course can sometimes find it hard to fit in. But a growing number of mature…Jill Johnes, Reader, Department of Economics, Lancaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/277522014-06-13T11:59:22Z2014-06-13T11:59:22ZGCSE attainment crucial for widening participation in higher education<p>While the proportion of students from more deprived families and neighbourhoods who go to university has been increasing in recent years, those from poorer backgrounds are still <a href="http://www.hefce.ac.uk/media/hefce/content/heinengland/2014report/HEinEngland_2014.pdf">far less likely to go to university than those from richer backgrounds</a>.</p>
<p>In a new <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/secondary-school-characteristics-and-university-participation">research project</a> funded by the Department for Education, I investigated the role of schools in helping to explain who goes to university and how well they do once they are there. I compared higher education participation rates and degree outcomes amongst pupils who attended different secondary schools, and explored the factors that help to explain these differences.</p>
<p>My findings highlight the importance of attainment at GCSE level, not just A-level, in explaining higher education participation decisions and degree outcomes. Schools can contribute to higher university entry and performance by helping students make the right choices about the subjects and qualifications they take at GCSE level, and by ensuring that they achieve the best possible grades. </p>
<p>They also suggest that among similar students with similar GCSE and A level results, those from less effective state schools may have higher “potential” than those from private, selective or more effective state schools, as they seem to perform significantly better once at university. This may be something that universities want to be aware of in making entry offers.</p>
<h2>The gap</h2>
<p>My research uses administrative data on all pupils in England. This data provides information on where pupils go to school, as well as their GCSE and A-level results. If they go to university, it also shows which institution they attend, whether they complete their degree, and which degree class they receive.</p>
<p>Compared to students who attend less effective state schools, those who attend private, selective and more effective state schools are substantially more likely to go to university, especially to “high-status” institutions – meaning those in the Russell Group, plus those with comparably high research quality. These students are also less likely to drop out, more likely to complete their degree, and more likely to be awarded a higher degree class.</p>
<p>But the fact that different types of pupils attend different types of schools is crucial for understanding these differences. Students from less effective state schools are more likely to come from disadvantaged neighbourhoods, more likely to have special educational needs, and have lower attainment, on average, than students from other types of schools. </p>
<p>In particular, they are much less likely to achieve good grades in the qualifications and subjects that are highly regarded by universities. </p>
<h2>Flip and reverse</h2>
<p>For example, I found that while 91% of pupils at selective independent schools achieve at least five A* to C grades at GCSE, including English and maths, only 39% of pupils at non-selective community schools do the same.</p>
<p>The differences come into even sharper relief once we focus on subjects that form part of the English baccalaureate (<a href="https://www.gov.uk/english-baccalaureate-information-for-schools">EBacc</a>): maths, English, science, history and/or geography, and languages. While 86% of pupils at selective independent schools achieve at least 5 A* to C grades in EBacc subjects, just 28% of students from non-selective community schools do the same.</p>
<p>These gaps are important. They are a key part of the reason why students from private, selective and more effective state schools are more likely to go to university – and do better once they are there – than pupils from less effective state schools.</p>
<p>When we compare students from similar backgrounds with the same grades in the same qualifications and subjects at the end of secondary school, the differences in participation virtually disappear: there is no longer any difference in how likely you are to go to university on the basis of the type of school you attend. </p>
<p>The impact of comparing like with like is even starker when we look at university outcomes. When we compare pupils from similar backgrounds with the same GCSE (and A-level) attainment, the association between secondary school characteristics and university outcomes is reversed: pupils from private, selective and more effective state schools are more likely to drop out, less likely to complete their degree, and less likely to be awarded a first or a 2:1 than similar pupils with similar attainment from less effective state schools. </p>
<p>For example, pupils from selective independent schools are 2.6 percentage points more likely to drop out, 6.4 percentage points less likely to complete their degree, and 10.3 percentage points less likely to graduate with a first or a 2:1 than similar pupils with similar attainment from non-selective community schools. This remains true even for comparisons of pupils from different schools who attend the same universities and study the same subjects. </p>
<h2>Results matter</h2>
<p>Moreover, GCSE attainment remains significantly associated with higher education participation and outcomes, even after accounting for A-level scores. </p>
<p>For example, every additional GCSE in an EBacc subject at grade A* is associated with a 2 percentage point increase in the likelihood of going to university and a 0.5-1 percentage point increase in the probability of attending a high-status institution. It is also associated with a 2 percentage point reduction in the likelihood of dropping out, and a 3 percentage point increase in the probability of graduating with a first or a 2:1.</p>
<p>These results suggest that “widening participation” efforts should focus on ensuring that pupils from all schools make the right choices over the subjects and qualifications they take at the end of secondary school, and that they maximise their chances of getting good grades at this level.</p>
<p>But they also raise the possibility that universities may wish to take into account the type of school a student attended when making them an offer. Among similar students with similar GCSE and A level results, my results suggest that those from less effective state schools perform significantly better at university.</p>
<p>While recognising that this is true on average, and not for every student, it is certainly something that universities should be aware of when setting entry requirements. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/27752/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Claire Crawford receives funding for her research from a range of government departments, research councils, charitable trusts and other organisations, including the Economic and Social Research Council, the Nuffield Foundation, the Department for Education, Universities UK, the Education Endowment Foundation and the Sutton Trust. All of her research is independent and the views expressed in this article are entirely her own.</span></em></p>While the proportion of students from more deprived families and neighbourhoods who go to university has been increasing in recent years, those from poorer backgrounds are still far less likely to go to…Claire Crawford, Assistant Professor, Economics Department, University of WarwickLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.