England’s foundation years funding cut will deepen inequalities

Last November, the UK’s education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, announced a 40 per cent reduction in the maximum fee English universities can charge for classroom-based foundation years. Largely overshadowed by the simultaneous decision to raise undergraduate fees, this cut is nevertheless likely to have serious consequences for social mobility.

In the same speech, Phillipson recognised “the importance of foundation years for promoting access to higher education” and confirmed her vision of “universities doing more to spread opportunity to disadvantaged students”. She also noted that the university attendance gap between disadvantaged school leavers and their peers is the highest on record. Indeed, the proportion of incoming students eligible for free school meals entering UK universities fell for the first time in almost two decades in 2022.

Undoubtedly, Phillipson is genuinely committed to social mobility, as are devoted colleagues in universities working in this space. Yet the foundation year fee reduction is likely to contribute to greater inequality.

Phillipson confirmed the government’s commitment to the lifelong learning entitlement, which was first proposed in 2019’s Augar Review of Post-18 Education and Funding. Augar also proposed an end to funding foundation years, claiming they entice those from disadvantaged backgrounds to pay extra tuition fees while offering poor value. Savings were an estimated £800 million and Augar recommended that £500 million be allocated to fund first full level 2 and 3 courses, such as Access to Higher Education Diplomas (AHEDs), for mature learners (those over 23). However, critics were sceptical that this would lead to significant improvements in university access.

DfE data shows that foundation-year cohorts contain a higher proportion of students from disadvantaged backgrounds than direct-entry undergraduate cohorts. They are also far more racially diverse. Furthermore, when properly resourced, foundation years provide positive outcomes beyond access alone. This is evidenced in a quantitative, longitudinal study tracking more than 700 foundation year students in business, management and economics at the University of Sussex Business School between 2015-16 and 2020-21. Based on student outcomes, continuation and completion data, we found that foundation years contribute to progressively narrowing, and ultimately eliminating awarding gaps between students from richer and poorer backgrounds.

That is because foundation-year students achieve better final degrees than direct-entry students from similar backgrounds (POLAR4 quintiles 1 and 2). Given intersections between disadvantage and ethnicity, foundation years also narrow ethnic awarding gaps. Such positive outcomes stand in stark contrast to the sector-wide picture, where progress on closing awarding gaps remains slow.

Existing research in the public domain does not adopt this focus. Analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, for example, doesn’t compare the outcomes for similar foundation-year and non-foundation-year students from disadvantaged backgrounds, so fails to determine the extent of learning gains.

Phillipson says foundation years “can be delivered more efficiently in classroom-based subjects, at a lower cost to students”. That’s a head-scratcher because the costs of properly resourced foundation years are at least the same as, if not higher than, undergraduate study because of the student profile, requiring smaller class sizes and specialist support and pedagogies to lead achievement.

It is true that the Office for Students has highlighted barely believable growth in student numbers and very poor outcomes in a small number of low- and unknown-tariff providers that offer foundation years through opaque subcontracting and franchising arrangements. That growth is such that even by 2021/22, before the post-pandemic acceleration, 73 per cent of foundation-year entrants were at such providers.

Arguably, this supports Augar’s claim that foundation years offer poor value for money. But that ignores the excellent foundation-year outcomes achieved by established universities genuinely committed to tackling disadvantage, such as Sussex.

AHEDs are undeniably important for access and are cheaper than foundation years (£3,000-£5,000, normally funded through Adult Learner Loans), but analysis demonstrates that they are not viable replacements for them, being very different in design and delivery. AHEDs are delivered mostly in further education colleges and their students are more geographically spread than foundation-year students. Their cohorts also contain more mature and female students and those from deprived areas.

Foundation-year students, meanwhile, are more ethnically diverse. They are also more likely to have achieved the equivalent of A levels, more likely to progress to a degree course within four years (including the most disadvantaged students) and more likely to complete their degrees, according to the OfS.

If properly resourced foundation years cease, the options for students from disadvantaged backgrounds to study well-conceived and properly resourced degree-level courses will be limited. If they still want to do a foundation year, they will be left with nothing but low-cost, poor-quality provision – a terrible outcome for students and taxpayers alike, and an indictment not of foundation years themselves but of the unintended consequences of a marketised environment with limited controls.

I agree with Josh Freeman, policy manager at the Higher Education Policy Institute: let’s monitor and sanction institutions with poor outcomes rather than cut fees for all foundation-year providers. Why implement policies that will harm high-quality provision at Durham, Sheffield, Sussex and many more mainstream universities because of a small number of providers with questionable motives?

A Labour government committed to social mobility would justifiably face criticism if this fee cut exacerbates inequalities. It’s time for a policy rethink focused on reforming a flawed foundation-year market distorted by the actions of a few unrepresentative providers.

Mark Clark is associate professor in management at the University of Sussex Business School.