Improving Access to Higher Education for Pupils from Underprivileged Backgrounds Dr Arvind Upadhyay Senior Lecturer in Procurement and Supply Chain Brighton Business School University of Brighton, UK

Brighton? University of Brighton 21,000 Students 3000 staff Five campuses

How should we define underprivileged pupils? It is important to have a broad range of criteria for identifying underprivileged pupils. Underprivileged pupils include: • those eligible for free school meals; • those from minority groups; • those in families on low income; • looked-after children; and • traveller children. (Byrne et al. 2013)

Deprivation – key facts After prior attainment, poverty is the single most important factor in predicting a child’s future life chances. Attainment gaps between pupils from low income families and their more affluent peers persist through all stages of education, including entry into Higher Education. A pupil from a non-deprived background is more than twice as likely to go on to study at university as their deprived peers. hants.gov.uk

An additional 4 years of education 5 years mortality from 11% to 9.2% Risk of heart disease from 31% to 28.8% Risk to diabetes from 7.0% to 6.0% Number of sick days from 5.2 days to 2.9 days Cutler and Lleras-Muney (2007)

The Overall Level of Funding of Public HEIs has declined since 2007/08 Expert Group on Future Funding for Higher Education: The Role, Value and Scale of Higher Education in Ireland

Not Living with Parents Costs of Attending HE: Monthly Expenditure (Eurostudent Survey, taken from HEA 2014) Expenditure Item Living with Parents Not Living with Parents All Students Accommodation 107 443 334 Food 125 202 177 Transportation 110 94 99 Communication 28 35 33 Health Costs 15 19 18 Childcare 3 16 12 Debt Payment (except mortgage) 22 39 34 Social and Leisure activities 69 72 71 Other regular living costs 55 66 Total 535 992 843

Student Perspectives 39% of students estimated that their family household gross annual income was less than the average industrial wage, approximately €35,000 (Eurostudent survey 2013) The level of financial difficulty increases in line with lower income levels. Overall approximately 18% of students indicated that they are in serious financial difficulty. 25% for students from families whose household family income is between 20,000-35,0000,

Regional gaps widen as London grows faster Source: UCAS Analysis Report (2015) UK application rates by country, region, constituency, sex, age and background

Decline in Part-time undergraduate UK and EU entrants in England

Looking ahead Removal of student number controls Building on National Networks for Collaborative Outreach (NNCOs) Changes in postgraduate financial support Demographic change 2015 Election and Brexit

Research Question What measures are necessary to further advance the access to higher education of underprivileged groups? Methodology: Thematic Content analysis Data source: publicly available reports from UK and Brazil Theme one: activities/initiatives/practices taken to improve Theme two: Effectiveness of activities/initiatives/practices taken

Why thematic content analysis Information collected through official reports is free to use and easy to access. Permission to access to data required in the proposed context is highly restricted for conducting a survey. This method of data collection and data preparation for statistical analysis is supported by the previous studies (e.g., Montabon, et al., 2007; Hofer, et al., 2012; Albino, et al., 2012)

Thank You Questions/Comments a.Upadhyay@brighton.ac.uk @aarbind www.icpe.int