Inequalities in Access to Higher Education

An Unequal Wales Seminar delivered by Professor Gareth Rees and Professor Chris Taylor, WISERD

Please click here for the report.

It is well established that, despite the major expansion – ‘massification’ – of Higher Education (HE) over recent decades, individuals from economically and socially disadvantaged backgrounds continue to face significant inequalities in access to HE.  This is true of Wales, as well as the other countries of the UK, even if the extent of these inequalities is somewhat reduced here (Rees and Taylor, 2006).

In Wales a distinct set of policies to widen participation have been developed.  Three examples of this are: a regionalisation agenda, the participation of young people from Communities First (CF) areas, and the introduction of the Welsh Baccalaureate Qualification (WBQ).  After outlining how these particular strategies have been developed to widen access we then presented research undertaken by WISERD that examines the impact of these particular initiatives on participation and access to HE.

In contrast to many other studies that have examined participation in recent years we also examined their impact on student progress and outcomes at university.