Blog17 July 2025
The journey to university is often celebrated as a testament to individual triumph and personal excellence. However, these merit-based narratives hide the different student experiences, not only in accessing higher education, but also in navigating university itself – experiences that differ greatly along the lines of class. Many students, particularly those from working-class backgrounds, do not have the inherited knowledge, culture and context that can help them ‘fit’ and feel comfortable in the university environment.
Working-class student experiences in higher education
My research at the University of Cambridge highlights how the experience of university can be fraught with tension for working-class students. None of my working-class research participants identified class as a core part of their identity before going to university. Yet, met with an overwhelming sense of rejection from the dominant culture, working-class students often come to identify their background – whether schooling, region, or familial occupations – as indicative of being an ‘outsider’, and in many cases, an ‘imposter’.
As well documented by educational sociologists such as Diane Reay, when working-class students arrive at university they are often confronted with misplaced preconceptions – based on factors such as accent, taste and cultural capital – that mark them as different. The absence of shared cultural reference points and embodied familiarity with dominant norms results in what Bourdieu terms a ‘cleft habitus’: a disjuncture between the world they come from and the one they now inhabit, which makes it difficult to navigate academic and social spheres comfortably.
It is telling that working-class students have led the charge to research their own experiences. Éireann Attridge’s research at Oxford, my research at Cambridge, and Holly Willis and Ella Hamilton’s work at Durham, demonstrate the strong disparities in experience based on class.
The combined message of this research is that we must not forget the basic principle of access initiatives: ‘getting on’ matters just as much as ‘getting in’. Even as universities become conscious of ‘fit’ in their admissions process and develop fairer processes of selection, issues of ‘fit’ still permeate university culture and prevent and hinder inclusion in both academic and social life.
One element of university life for working-class students identified in my research is that some students come to understand practices of ‘fitting in’ as acts of betrayal. If universities are going to be truly accessible then students must not feel compelled to suppress aspects of their identity, dampen their accents, or lie about aspects of their life outside of university in order to ‘fit in’.
The need for improved support
Universities have a responsibility not only to provide academic opportunities but also to ensure an environment where all students can thrive. Universities cannot be allowed to avoid these issues of inclusion on the basis that students’ cultural and social lives are separate from the institution itself.
One easy solution is that universities must talk more about class – but this must be accompanied by meaningful action. Students need to know that their experiences are being listened to, and that they will be taken seriously as part of the university community. Participants in my research reported a reluctance to share their experiences, in part because of the underrepresentation of working-class staff in universities. Many feared they would not be understood – or worse, that they would be perceived as ungrateful or having failed to make the most of the opportunity they have been given.
Universities must take the lead in creating the conditions of openness, where students feel their perspectives matter and are genuinely heard. This means giving students a platform to share their experiences, diversifying staff, and building robust support structures to address the needs of underrepresented students.
The Equality Act and inclusion practices
I previously toured a college at an ‘elite university’ and came across a poster signposting welfare support. It highlighted a zero-tolerance policy to discrimination and warned of the illegality of harassment, discrimination and bullying on the grounds of age; disability; gender reassignment; marriage and civil partnership; pregnancy and maternity; race or ethnicity; religion or belief; sex; and sexual orientation.
Despite the broader zero-tolerance policy to any sort of discrimination, the college felt the need to signpost specific support – and rightfully so – for those who felt violated on the grounds of these characteristics protected by the Equality Act 2010.
But, what about class? What about students who are bullied because of the school that they went to; their accents; the jobs – or lack of jobs – of their parents? Should they not have recourse to justice? Should they not be provided with specialist support for their struggles?
Class is notably absent from the list of protected characteristics in the Equality Act, leaving many students without the formal recognition or institutional safeguards afforded to other forms of identity-based discrimination, which are rightfully protected. This absence risks sending the message that class-based prejudice is somehow less serious – or less legitimate – when in fact it deserves the same level of attention and zero-tolerance response, as argued in this LSE blogpost.
Taking action on class discrimination
Now, while I think class should be a protected characteristic, universities cannot wait to see if the government will amend the Equality Act, nor should they need to be pushed to recognise class as a serious issue in inclusion.
Universities cannot truly be bastions of opportunity until they take class seriously, and the endemic nature of class discrimination and disparities highlights the importance of focusing on this area.