Attempts to teach all classes

Higher education is starting to target students from low-income groups. Maggie Woodrow reports

Higher-income groups still dominate higher education. While a third of over-18s now participates overall, this rises to 80 per cent for those from the highest income group, down to 12 per cent for the lowest. Relative participation rates of women, most minority ethnic groups and mature students have improved significantly but socio-economic status still makes a huge difference.

Some higher education institutions are showing that something can be done. Instead of insisting on A levels or Highers, they are defying league tables by setting alternative entry criteria.

Instead of rejecting students from poor families whose present performance does not yet match that of more affluent applicants they are recognising how much this achievement represents in terms of success over formidable socio-economic barriers.

Instead of deploring the absence of a "high-aspiration culture" among the lower social classes, they aim to give them the kind of interest, support and knowledge of higher education that middle-class children accept as their birthright.

Instead of fearing that a wider social base will damage the ethos of higher education, these institutions respect diversity as a means of enhancing learning quality.

How are they doing it? Rejecting the practice of favouring applicants from the "best" schools, these higher education institutions have made access partnerships with the lowest achieving schools in, for example, parts of Hull, where less than 10 per cent of pupils achieve five GCSEs at Grade C or above (against an English average of 45 per cent); in parts of the Rhondda, where there is often no history of employment in the extended family; or in Manchester's Moss Side, where only 1 per cent of the large Afro-Caribbean population ever enters higher education.

Universities and colleges of higher education are targeting their access programmes directly at those most needing support, offering guaranteed places through summer schools, entry through compact agreements, skills development, accredited courses, and student tutoring schemes.

These initiatives cost anything between Pounds 5,000 and Pounds 200,000 a year, depending partly on their size. Raising the money takes persistence and entrepreneurial flair. But staff regret the uncertainty and the short-termism and feel that widening the social basis of mainstream higher education is not a one-off "project".

These higher education institutions are not seeking to increase participation among low-income groups simply to boost recruitment. There is ample evidence of investment in access strategies by institutions and faculties where recruitment has never posed a problem. Some are responding to the strong steer given by Dearing and the recent lifelong learning green papers to focus on poorer students. Others get involved as part of their wider contribution to regional development and regeneration. Many deplore the waste of talent and believe that the effects of earlier educational disadvantage should not be exacerbated by an elitist higher education system.

Of course they are worried about lowering standards and no one wants to set students up to fail. So these institutions track participants' progress from 14 up to higher education entry and beyond. The evidence from both "old" and "new" universities is that performance and retention rates of access entrants from lower socio-economic groups are at least as good as those of other entrants.

But the myth that lower class means lower standards dies hard. The result is that, despite the high cost of public expenditure on higher education, the poorest groups in society continue to benefit least from it. Our system does not simply reflect inequalities in society, it helps to polarise them by ensuring that those with higher social status participate relatively more than others.

It is time to recognise that talent and ability are not allocated in direct proportion to income level. A fairer distribution of resources is badly needed.

Maggie Woodrow is executive director of the European Access Network at the University of Westminster and director of the "Good Practice in Widening Participation Project", whose report From Elitism to Inclusion will be published by the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals next week.