The UK should not give up on contextual admissions

The UK Social Mobility Commission’s December report, setting out its approach to boosting equality of opportunity, is hardly the first to question the efficacy and fairness of contextual university admissions. But it has certainly increased the volume of opposition.

The report, Innovation Generation: next steps for social mobility, argues that lowering entry requirements for disadvantaged applicants “certainly helps a small number of people, but it risks social mobility policy becoming a zero-sum game, as we are intervening to help one person at someone else’s expense”. Nor is there any evidence, the commission argues, that that person is “advantaged” – or that it would be fairer if they were.

But the Sutton Trust remains convinced that, if implemented consistently and transparently across the sector, contextual offers have the potential to be transformative for fair access.

Over the past 25 years, UK university attendance has increased substantially, with 50 per cent of young people entering higher education by age 30 for the first time in 2017. But while this expansion has opened up opportunities for many students from underrepresented groups, access gaps remain stubbornly persistent. The participation gap between students who were eligible for free school meals and those who were not has now reached a record high, with just 29 per cent of the former entering higher education by age 19 in 2022-23, compared with 52 per cent of their peers. And these access gaps are the widest at the most prestigious institutions.

Despite concerted efforts from government, universities and the third sector, progress on widening participation has often felt like running to stand still. And in areas where less focus has been placed – such as regional disparities, the lower proportion of men attending university compared with women, and access for white working-class students – inequalities have worsened. In this situation, adjusting entry requirements for students based on their backgrounds and contexts is a crucial tool in widening access.

The Sutton Trust’s Contextual Offers Tool for 2025 entry is now live, providing an updated resource to help UK universities and applicants navigate contextual admission as the Ucas application deadline looms. It offers key insights into the current landscape of contextual admissions, highlighting both progress and persistent inconsistencies across the sector on a widening range of measures – including, for the first time, indicators for estranged students, TUNDRA (tracking underrepresentation by area), and children from UK armed forces families.

Of the total number of UK universities reviewed (166), only 46 are currently applying contextual offers and publishing information online. There is also significant variation in how these offers are determined, with universities often using unsuitable measures of disadvantage, despite good intent.

Across all universities offering contextual admissions, a total of 16 different measures of eligibility are used, with the number of these criteria applied by each institution ranging from two (Goldsmiths and Sunderland) to 12 (Cardiff University). Even free school meals are used by only 61 per cent of universities, despite being one of the most robust indicators available for socio-economic disadvantage. Conversely, 74 per cent of universities use POLAR, an indicator of university participation by local area but a weak measure of socio-economic position, which experts have warned should not be used in isolation for individual contextual admissions. This is likely a result of the previous major focus on POLAR by the Office for Students, but the regulator now looks at a much wider range of indicators, including free school meals and index of multiple deprivation, when evaluating widening participation efforts.

Care experience is the most frequently applied criterion, used by 93 per cent of universities offering contextual admissions, followed by participation in outreach programmes (80 per cent). By contrast, some emerging indicators, such as service-children status (applied only by Reading and York St John) and TUNDRA (applied only by UCL and Southampton), are used sparingly.

In the absence of sector-wide guidance, there are also wide variations in the visibility and clarity of contextual admissions. If students don’t know about the contextual offers available to them, it’s more difficult for them to benefit from them, but information is too often buried in hard-to-find spots on websites.

Both universities and Ucas need to do more to make the possibility of contextual offers clear, accessible and consistent. While Ucas course pages often do now have information on the contextual offers available, for instance, more could be done to ensure that it is comprehensive and clear. Ideally, the site would offer a full list of universities that make contextual offers, give standardised information about each one and allow students to input their characteristics to find out whether they are eligible.

Scaled and standardised contextual admissions can widen access to underrepresented groups, diversify the talent pool and contribute to a fairer society. And beyond contextual admissions, the lack of progress in closing access gaps to higher education shows the need for the government and the OfS to explore a broader sector-wide approach to widening access. A sharper focus on socio-economic disadvantage and stronger regulatory expectations could move the dial in a way that has so far proved elusive.

Jon Datta is head of university access and digital at the Sutton Trust.