London participation rates tipped to become ‘increasingly uneven’

The gap in university entry rates between London’s poorest and richest pupils is expected to continue to grow to “unprecedented levels”, despite overall growth in participation, a report warns.

School-leavers from the UK capital are much more likely than their peers in the rest of England to enter higher education, with 64 per cent enrolling by age 19, compared with 49.8 per cent nationally.

Performance is even more impressive for students eligible for free school meals (FSM), for whom the progression rate is almost 50 per cent, compared with 29 per cent England-wide, with high school standards, ethnic diversity and the accessibility of outreach opportunities among the reasons credited.

However, a report published by London Higher on 13 February warns that progress made in recent years “may now be stalling” and that strong overall performance risks masking significant intra-regional differences.

Between 2020-21 and 2022-23 the gap in higher education participation rates between FSM and non-FSM pupils grew from 12.6 percentage points to 15.5 percentage points. It was as low as 9.6 percentage points in 2015-16.

But the report produced by London Higher’s AccessHE unit projects that it could widen to 20 percentage points by 2035.

It predicts that the FSM entry rate will hit 61 per cent over the next decade, almost 20 percentage points above the second-highest-performing region, but this is a drop on a prediction made by AccessHE in 2018, when it expected the access rate to hit 73 per cent among under-24s.

Nevertheless, demographic trends mean that an additional 27,000 young Londoners are expected to enter higher education every year by 2035. As around half of students choose to remain in London to study, “the responsibility for meeting this additional demand will fall disproportionately on the capital’s HE sector”, the report says.

At the moment, the FSM to non-FSM participation gap is smaller than 10 percentage points in eight local authorities, but it is larger than 25 percentage points in four – Kingston upon Thames, Merton, Richmond upon Thames and Sutton.

And the report warns these disparities are only likely to get worse. By 2035, more than three-quarters of FSM students are likely to progress to higher education in four local authorities, but the progression rate will be below four in 10 in Bromley, Havering and Lewisham.

The report recommends targeted efforts to address inequalities, including prioritising groups such as white, FSM-eligible males, and urges universities to create more inclusive environments for students from minority backgrounds.

“London has a proud record when it comes to widening access to HE, but our findings show this cannot be taken for granted. Continuing to lead the way on access should now form the backbone of the capital’s own ‘opportunity mission’,” said Richard Boffey, head of AccessHE and the report’s lead author.

“The gap in university entry rates for students from lower-income households has been steadily increasing in recent years and, by looking ahead to 2035, we can plainly see the extent of lost educational opportunity that trend will represent if it is left unchecked.”

juliette.rowsell@timeshighereducation.com