For the first time since records began, fewer poor students are going to university

For the first time since records began, there has been a decline in the number of the poorest students who end up going to university.

A sudden decline in poor students going to university

Young people from free school meals (FSM) backgrounds fell further behind their peers in England in progressing to higher education from 2021/2022 to 2022/23, with the gap in terms of numbers progressing increasing to over 210,000.

The areas with less than one in five FSM learners go onto higher education are drawn mainly from rural and coastal communities. The Access to Higher Education and Regional Inequality: who is missing out? report looks in-depth at progression to higher education for young people from FSM backgrounds across regions and local areas in England from 2005/06 to 2022/23. Key findings in the report include:

• The percentage of state school pupils in receipt of FSM progressing to higher education by age 19 declined for the first time year on year since records began, from 29.2% in 2021/22 to 29% in 2022/23.
• The number of FSM state school pupils progressing to higher education increased by 2,754, which is the biggest annual increase since records began in 2005/06, but the number of non-FSM learners progressing to higher education increased by 6,645.
• The number of areas where FSM learners have less than a one-in-four chance of progressing to higher education declined slightly in 2022/23 compared to 2021/22, from 43 to 36, but the number of areas below the national average (29.2% in 2021/22 and 29% in 2022/23) stayed relatively unchanged (101 in 2021/22 and 100 in 2022/23).
• Westminster was the local authority area with the highest percentage of FSM state school pupils progressing to higher education at 63.8%, while the area where progression was the lowest was the County of Herefordshire at 12.2%.
• Over the last 10 years the gap between London and the rest of England has widened, and by 2022/23 the gap between London and the South West was over 30 percentage points.

The report argues that the government needs to build on the success of national collaborative university outreach initiatives that support those from low-income backgrounds, which were first launched 21 years ago with the Aimhigher programme.

A new programme should be launched where universities combine their resources working with those 16 and under alongside local targets for FSM learners progressing to higher education.

A “worrying slowdown”

The report is produced by the National Education Opportunities Network (NEON), which is the national organisation for supporting access to higher education for those from under-represented groups in the United Kingdom based at the University of West London.

As Professor Graeme Atherton, Director of NEON and author of the report states:

This year’s data shows a worrying slowdown in progress in terms of widening access to higher education and shows again clearly the huge differences in future opportunities that young people from low-income backgrounds face across the country. As the government looks to break down regional inequalities post levelling up, higher education progression has to be a central concern.

Featured image via the Canary