Catching up with the middle classes – how can university access become more equitable?

While more students from poorer backgrounds are now going to university, "there is still a significant way to go in further widening participation and developing fair access to all institutions", said IOE's Director in a talk at City University this week.

In his lecture, Enhancing equity in higher education – are we making progress? Professor Geoff Whitty said more should be done to encourage and help students from lower socio-economic backgrounds into institutions seen as more "prestigious".

Although this is mainly because they lack the required qualifications, research shows that some of these students choose not to go to "top" universities even if they qualify. "This suggests that support at school and college is needed to encourage students for whom it is appropriate to apply to more prestigious higher education institutions," said Professor Whitty.

Meanwhile, evidence from Oxford Mobility Studies suggests that, as access to HE as a whole is broadening, people from middle-class backgrounds are attempting to maintain their positional advantage by attending highly prestigious institutions. So student access to the system as a whole did not mean access to the whole system for those from less advantaged backgrounds.

"This problem is now seen by sociologists as much more significant than it was during the 1970s expansion and only when both quantitative and qualitative inequalities have been successfully tackled can it reasonably be claimed that we have a equitable system."

Professor Whitty said a number of policy shifts needed to happen:
• A focus on narrowing attainment gaps much earlier in children's educational careers
• Better information and guidance provided by schools
• Regular and ongoing school-university links for all schools
• More work undertaken to encourage interest in HE in families and communities
• More sophisticated research to inform policy makers and institutional leaders.

Politicians are now taking these seriously, he noted.  "So we are making progress in getting the issues onto the agenda and in widening participation. We now need to make more progress in actually achieving equity, especially as the current competitive pressures on university places could well lead in the opposite direction if we are not very careful," he concluded.