Data Insight: Investigating the relationship between higher education participation, personal characteristics and area of residence among school or college leavers

This Data Insight investigates the extent to which the personal characteristics and area of residence of school or college leavers in England have a bearing on the likelihood of participation in higher education. The personal characteristics considered include gender, ethnicity and parental household income. The analysis reported was carried out using linked administrative data from the Department for Education’s National Pupil Database (NPD) and the Higher Education Statistics Agency’s (HESA) student record. These are components of the Longitudinal Education Outcomes (LEO) dataset.

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Background

Higher education participation among school and college leavers in England has been steadily increasing for several decades. However, annual descriptive statistics published by the Department for Education (DfE) reveal that higher education participation rates vary considerably by characteristics such as gender, ethnicity, parental household income and area of residence . Previous analysis has used data concerning cohorts of students born in the late 1980s and early 1990s to look at disparities in access to higher education. This suggested that higher education access disparities by gender and parental household income can primarily be attributed to disparities in school attainment at age 16, whereas disparities in higher education access by ethnicity cannot be explained this way. Despite being very large, regional inequalities in higher education participation have received little attention in existing research. Not much is known about why the higher education participation rate of young people in London in particular is considerably higher than in every other region of England.

What we found

• More female pupils progress to higher education than male
• Pupils in almost all ethnic minority groups are more likely to progress to higher education than those of White British ethnicity
• Pupils who were eligible for free school meals were less likely to progress to higher education
• Over half of pupils in London go on to higher education, a much higher proportion than outside London

Why it matters

University graduates tend to earn higher salaries on average compared to non-graduates once they enter the labour market and this is especially true for those who attend more selective universities. Adults with higher levels of education also appear to enjoy a range of more favourable non-financial outcomes, such as longer life expectancies and a reduced likelihood of committing crime. If young people are deprived of the opportunity to take part in higher education, they will miss out on many of the opportunities that it may afford them. There is a particular challenge with respect to students from lower-income households. If these young people face barriers in accessing university, they may then struggle to access well-paid jobs in the future. This highlights the risk of the reproduction of disadvantage from one generation to the next.