Running a farm on the Isle of Wight while bringing up five young children, Zoe Chapman (above) would not be studying for a degree if it were not for her local further education college, writes Phil Baty.
Logistics dictated it would involve five hours of commuting a day to make it across the water to Bournemouth University - a ferry, two trains and a bus to get to lectures. It would have been even longer to Southampton or Portsmouth universities. The cost of the ferry alone would have been Pounds 8 a day. "This would have been impossible," she says.
"A third of school-leaving islanders go to the mainland to study higher education. They usually stay there, but it was too difficult for me."
Ms Chapman, 42, completed a BTEC higher national diploma in business at the Isle of Wight College and has converted to a University of Bournemouth-validated part-time degree course in business studies. She was a national finalist in this year's Edexcel student of the year awards.
"Being able to study at the Isle of Wight College," she says, "was brilliant for me. It was a total necessity."
But it was not just access that led her to study higher education in an FE college. "The college is small enough that the lecturers know your first name, know your history and are interested. You get a degree of attention that you do not get at a conventional university."