Broadening recruitment to higher education through the admission system: gender and class perspectives

Abstract Alternative entrance routes into higher education have been established in Sweden in order to facilitate the entrance of under‐represented groups of students. The question is whether or not the additional entrance possibilities have served their purpose and, if so, to what extent. This is a longitudinal study using register data on one whole cohort, with the aim to follow these individuals' educational careers up to university matriculation. The analyses simultaneously consider effects of gender and class. Results show that upper middle‐class men are most successful in utilising every one of the additional entrance possibilities. The additional entrance possibilities have increased class bias in higher education even more, and the Swedish Scholastic Assessment Test, in particular, is an important contributor to this bias.