What are seen as barriers to widening participation in Higher Education? How might they be overcome?

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Student Number: 04500813                Word Count: 2032

        Themes and issues in the sociology of education

What are seen as barriers to widening participation in Higher Education? How might they be overcome?

In recent years the Government has put a lot of effort into increasing participation in Higher Education, using a wide variety of methods including a lot of media advertising. Although this may account for a large proportion of an increase in the diversity of present student populations, changes in British society have also had significant impacts on the variety of students in British universities at present.

In today’s society there are a lot of attributes that have affected the types of students entering into university, both as students out of school, and also mature students looking to widen their qualifications. An increase in mature student participation is mainly due to a lack of career stability, and so people are having to re-train in other fields in order to obtain jobs. Preece (1998) notes that the trend for a more diverse student population “has generally been stimulated by the upskilling needs of a fast changing world and demographic age population shifts.” As well as changes in the way society is operating, there are other changes, and improvements that have led to students who earlier would not have even considered higher education, now being able, and encouraged to enrol in higher education. An improved welfare state has meant that disabled people may be better supported during their early education. As a result, more young people with special needs are achieving the entry requirements for university. In addition, increased material wealth has led to higher aspirations in terms of education. Parents have high expectations of their children and perceive university degrees as an essential to entering the jobs-market.

In her article Student retention in higher education: the role of institutional habitus Liz Thomas studies the economic barriers that affect students while they are at university. Finance was discovered to be a major problem for students, and also led to a large proportion of them thinking of ‘dropping out’ of university before they had finished their degrees. Thomas found that this problem consisted of three issues.

A general lack of money and concern about future debt

A comparative lack of money especially in comparison to friends in full time employment

The need to work while studying and the pressure this adds to the student

One student, in her study, worked out that during their time at university, four years, they will have spent a total of £41,000. This is a large figure for someone who is in the process of gaining qualifications in the hope to acquire full time employment. Thomas found that the majority of students that she surveyed (87.5%), at some point, felt that they worried about finance.

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The second issue is more connected to how the student feels in comparison to either friends who, instead of going to university, have joined full time employment and are earning ‘good’ money, or comparing the students past employment, if any. One student, in the study, commented: “It’s difficult if you’ve got mates at home who are working and they’ve got jobs and you’ve got nothing.”

The third issue involves a lot of students, and is linked with the other two issues as well. Due to financial difficulties, students are in need to work to supplement income. These can ...

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