This piece is by Dr Richard Boffey, Head of London Higher’s widening participation project, AccessHE.
The Post-16 Education and Skills White Paper sets out an ambitious vision for reform of the tertiary education system in England. It is equally ambitious on the theme of opportunity and access, which is a thread running throughout the White Paper as well as the subject of several discrete policy announcements. These could each, in their own way, contribute to more equitable participation in higher education in London. But the most decisive consequence of what the white paper sets out, at least for higher education’s social mobility role in the capital, is almost certain to be its ambitions for sector consolidation and specialisation, and the impact this will have on student choice.
This is not to dismiss the significance of the other access and participation proposals announced in the white paper, spanning financial support, accommodation, regulatory changes, a new Access and Participation Task & Finish Group, and more besides. They represent positive steps, notwithstanding the fact that detail on how they are to be implemented is still to follow. This is particularly true of the planned re-introduction of maintenance grants. Whether the grants will in fact open, rather than close, doors to opportunity for students depends on whether Government retains its proposed below-London Living Wage household income eligibility threshold and restricts the grants to students studying industrial strategy-aligned courses.
Arguably the most consequential announcement for access and participation, though, is the call for providers to become more specialised and to coordinate their offer regionally.
The white paper reaffirms a (quasi-)market higher education system with student choice and provider competition at its heart. Its concern with the current model is that ‘too many providers with similar offerings are chasing the same students’. On this basis it calls for a rationalisation of the provider landscape around clusters of institutions working together ‘to make sure there is a comprehensive offer in their local area, including diversity of subjects, qualifications and different modes of study where this is beneficial to students and the economy’.
Whilst the aim is welcome, the underlying implication – that some areas of the country are over-served by higher education currently – is more troubling, seen through the lens of London’s diverse provider ecosystem.
Today’s prospective students enjoy an unparalleled choice of study options in the capital, whether that be world-leading conservatoires and specialist institutions, powerhouses of science and technology research, broad-based providers, or institutions with deep community roots and flexible teaching provision. This choice is a cornerstone of access; without it, we cannot expect London’s hyper-diverse student population of the future to be able to exercise meaningful agency in making decisions about their educational pathways.
The Office for Students’ own Equality of Opportunity Risk Register identifies constraints on choice as a potential barrier to equitable higher education access and participation and it is precisely these same ‘at risk’ student groups who are most likely to remain local to study – a trend that the latest UCAS data shows is only accelerating. We know from our own long-standing outreach partnership with the London Borough of Havering, which has the lowest rate of higher education participation in the capital, that the access gap here relative to the rest of London is in part attributable to the absence of a local university, making higher education a less visible pathway for young residents. Consolidating the footprint of London’s higher education hardly seems the solution.
The white paper gives rise to the suspicion that government will not see things this way. The task ahead, then, is to ensure that its vision for a ‘comprehensive’ higher education offer preserves the diversity of higher education in London. Or better still, extends it, if the example of Havering is anything to go by.
We have every reason to be proud of London’s reputation as a hotspot of higher education opportunities. It is a major contributing factor to the city’s recent social mobility success stories. London’s strong showing in datasets relating wholly or partially to choice in higher education, such as the Sutton Trust’s Opportunity Index, and the British Academy’s map of social sciences, arts and the humanities (SHAPE) provision, should be celebrated for what it is: not a vice, but a virtue. For that reason, we must not be tempted to apologise for it in response to the White Paper. We must defend it.
Join London Higher on 11 February for the annual AccessHE conference: growth for all, which will explore how strategic regional coordination in London can transform widening participation into a powerful driver of inclusive growth.
