Access to Higher Education and Disadvantaged Young People

Abstract This article will highlight the difficulties faced by qualified but disadvantaged young people in accessing higher education. This is an issue which has strong implications for education policy, economic efficiency and social justice. Over the past two decades, despite large increases in overall access to higher education, the gap in level of participation between the most affluent and most disadvantaged school‐leavers has remained intact. This article will examine patterns of educational attrition amongst less affluent young people, who gain sufficient qualifications to enter higher education. In other words, in order to redress the imbalance in the uptake of places in higher education, this article will distinguish between the factors which qualify young people to access university and those which predispose them to participate. A range of factors (barriers) which impacted upon levels of participation in higher education was found. Access to higher education was primarily dictated by level of school achievement, although this in turn was found to be a function of disadvantage. Furthermore, some qualified but disadvantaged young people forwent the opportunity to enter higher education on leaving school, while others enrolled in less advanced courses, for reasons other than academic ability.