Report
23 January 2020
Summary
Despite the ever-growing number of students who seek to attain a higher education degree, students from disadvantaged backgrounds are still less likely than their more privileged counterparts to progress to higher education, and to enrol in more selective universities. Much of this gap can be explained by differences in the grades students achieve in school or college. However, even when controlling for this prior attainment, the gap remains.
To address this situation, there has been a growing focus on widening access to higher education for young people from under-represented groups. In 2017-18, the higher education sector spent £248m on widening access. Yet despite this considerable investment and many years of widening participation policy, progress has been modest and there appears to be limited evidence on the effectiveness of the interventions carried out.
The goal of this review by the Education Policy Institute, and commissioned by TASO, was to provide evidence on the interventions that have been shown to be most effective in improving participation for disadvantaged students, and to identify gaps in the current research base.
The review presents 92 studies that provide empirical evidence of the impact of outreach interventions on a broad range of outcomes, including aspirations towards, awareness of, and progression to, higher education for disadvantaged or under-represented students. These activities include interventions that provide information, advice and guidance; mentoring and counselling; financial aid; summer schools; and interventions that combine two or more of these components, known as black box interventions.
The report also includes recommendations on what the priorities should be, based on the evidence gaps detailed.