Beyond Educating Rita: mature students and Access courses

During the 1980s government, industry and educational institutions all made clear their support for increased access of 'non-conventional' students to higher education [1]. The continuing expansion of higher education during recent years includes an explicit acknowledgement that institutions should widen their intake and that 'more means different' [2]. Widening the range of admissions was contrasted to increasing numbers without change in the social composition of the student body. The then Education Secretary, Kenneth Baker, announced that higher education institutions 'will have to re-orient themselves in new ways to recruit students not drawn from the traditional 18-year-old class and to attract groups currently under-represented' [3]. Some of these non-conventional and under-represented groups might be attracted at a later age-as mature students. The subject discussed here is the social composition of one group of adults on courses which could lead them to become mature students on first degree courses in British higher education. They are students on Access courses. Access courses are one way of entering higher education for mature students, and their numbers have increased rapidly over the last ten years. This article examines what kind of adult becomes a mature student on an Access course.