Teachers in London think significantly more of their students will progress to higher education compared to those in the North West, North East and Midlands

 Public First is supporting the UPP Foundation launches major inquiry into the future of widening participation to higher education. The inquiry aims to support the Government’s Opportunity Mission by providing concrete recommendations to break down barriers to higher education and improve student outcomes.

The launch of the inquiry coincides with new research into the attitudes of teachers and parents which finds:

• 75% of teachers in London expect at least half of their class to progress to higher education, compared to just 45% in the North West and Yorkshire and the North East, and just 48% in the Midlands.
• Nearly a quarter (24%) of teachers think that the main barrier to higher education progression for their students is an inability of their students to achieve the required grades.
• Teachers in schools with a more affluent intake, as measured by the percentage of students eligible for free school meals (FSM), believe that more of their students will attend university: more than two-thirds of teachers in the most affluent quartile of schools (69%) feel that at least half of their students will go to university, compared to just one-third of teachers in schools in the most deprived quartile of schools (32%).
• 75% of teachers in Ofsted Outstanding schools thought that more than half their class would progress to higher education, compared to just 35% in schools which were rated Requires Improvement or Inadequate.
• University is still the most popular choice for parents when asked what they want their child to do once they leave education at 18, but cost concerns dominate parents’ worries about university: 36% think tuition fees are too expensive, 35% worry students leave with too much debt, and 31% are concerned about the high cost of living for students.

Despite the target of 50% of young people attending university being met in 2017, significant inequalities persist in who accesses higher education, how they experience it, and what they gain from it. The difference in progression rates to higher education between students eligible for free school meals and their peers has widened to 20.8% – the highest on record. Regionally, London’s higher education participation rate stands at 61.2%, compared to just 40.8% in the North East.

We see even starker variations in geographical rates of participation at a local level. A young person in Houghton and Sunderland South – Bridget Phillipson’s own seat – is 9.7 percentage points less likely to be attending university than the national average. 71.6% of 18 year olds in Battersea entered higher education in 2024 – the highest UK constituency – compared to just 11.1% in Barrow-in-Furness.

Even for disadvantaged students who do make it to university, outcome gaps are widening rather than narrowing. The continuation gap between students from the most and least advantaged backgrounds reached 9.4 percentage points in 2021-22, up from 7.5 percentage points in 2016-17.

The new inquiry from the UPP Foundation therefore comes at a critical time as the new Labour administration begins translating its Opportunity Mission into concrete policies which tackle these challenges.

The UPP Foundation inquiry will focus initially on two key areas:

• Regional “cold spots” – exploring why there has been persistent failure to raise HE participation in regions where significantly fewer young people attend university. In Barrow-in-Furness, just 13.1% of 18-year-olds entered higher education in 2023, compared to 69.5% in Wimbledon
• Student experience disparities – examining how university experiences differ based on students’ living arrangements and economic backgrounds, with poorer students often receiving a secondary experience that contributes to lower continuation and completion rates.

Richard Brabner, Executive Chair of the UPP Foundation said: “This agenda is too important to be put on the back burner. With universities facing unprecedented financial challenges, we want to fill some of the gaps left by the Opportunity Mission to set out concrete goals and policy recommendations that could help make fair access, widening participation and student success a reality.”

You can find more about the report here:

Polling tables can be found here and here [for parents] and here [for teachers]