Educational Inequality and the Expansion of UK Higher Education
| Date | 01 May 2004 |
| Published date | 01 May 2004 |
| Author | Stephen Machin,Jo Blanden |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.0036-9292.2004.00304.x |
EDUCATIONAL INEQUALITY
AND THE EXPANSION OF
UK HIGHER EDUCATION
Jo Blanden and Stephen Machin
n
Abstract
In this paper we explore changes over time in higher education (HE) participation
and attainment between people from richer and poorer family backgrounds during a
time period when the UK higher education system expanded at a rapid rate. We use
longitudinal data from three time periods to study temporal shifts in HE
participation and attainment across parental income groups for children going to
university in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. The key finding is a highly policy relevant
one, namely that HE expansion has not been equally distributed across people from
richer and poorer backgrounds. Rather, it has disproportionately benefited children
from relatively rich families. Despite the fact that many more children from higher
income backgrounds participated in HE before the recent expansion of the system,
the expansion actedto widen participation gaps between richand poor children. This
finding is robust to different measures of education participation and inequality. It
also emerges from non-parametric estimationsand from a more detailed econometric
model allowing for the sequential nature of education choices with potentially
different income associations at different stages of the education sequence.
I Intro duction
The UK Higher Education (HE) System has expanded massively in recent
decades, with student numbers rising from 400,000 in the 1960s to 2,000,000 at
the turn of the new century (Greenaway and Haynes, 2003). One in three now
participate in higher education as compared to one in sixteen at the start of the
1960s. Many commentators believe this expansion to be a good thing since
increased HE raises skill levels thereby contributing positively to national
productivity. Moreover, it is sometimes argued that increased educational
opportunities are associated with greater equality of opportunity as more
university places offer greater potential for the advancement of students from
poorer backgrounds.
In this paper we study the distributional consequences of HE expansion. We
ask whether one does indeed see the expansion providing more opportunities for
n
University College London and Centre for Economic Performance, London School of
Economics
Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 51, No. 2, May 2004
rScottish Economic Society 2004, Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK
and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA
230
low income children to get into HE or whether it acted to reinforce already
existent inequalities in access to higher education. We report strong evidence in
the direction of the latter. That is to say, the HE expansion has not been equally
distributed across people from richer and poorer backgrounds. Rather, it has
disproportionately benefited children from relatively rich families. Despite the
fact that many more children from richer backgrounds participated in HE
before the recent expansion of the system, the expansion has actually acted to
significantly widen participation gaps between rich and poor children.
These findings have implications for the Government’s continuing policy of
increasing the number of students in higher education to 50% of each cohort by
2010. Recently discussion about the distribution of HE expansion has moved
forward in the public debate. Indeed, the current Secretary of State for
Education, Charles Clarke, stated on BBC news that if he had to choose between
fulfilling the 50% target for participation and getting ‘a much better class basis’
amongst those currently enrolling, ‘I would choose the latter’ (BBC News, 18
December, 2002). Moreover, the previous Minister, Estelle Morris, recognized
the importance of this, saying the following in October 2001:
Our pledge to increase participation is one of this Government’s highest
priorities. . . . Universities are not a birthright of the middle classes. None of
us can defend the position where five times as many young people from
professional backgrounds enter higher education compared with those from
unskilled and manual backgrounds – 73–74% compared with 13–14% – and
when that gap has not narrowed in recent time (Department for Education
and Skills, 2001).
It is therefore crucial to understand as much as possible about increased
inequality in higher education participation. It is also important to check the
robustness of our findings to different measures and specifications. In this paper
we concentrate on a number of aspects of the inequality of educational
expansion using three data sources: the National Child Development Study; the
British Cohort Study; and the British Household Panel Survey. These enable us
to present evidence on young people who attended university in the late 1970s,
the late 1980s/early 1990s and the mid-to-late 1990s.
We first outline results demonstrating that family income displays a closer
association with degree attainment in more recent time periods. In doing so, we
explore issues on how to best specify the HE-income relation, finding that
increases in higher education inequality are robust to different ways of using the
available income information. We also report results from non-parametric
specifications to enhance our understanding of how associations between income
and the probability of degree attainment have changed throughout the income
distribution. The next issue we explore is the robustness of the findings to a
different measure of educational attainment, whether people are in full-time
education by age 19. Finally, we present results from econometric models
allowing for different income associations at different levels of the education
sequence and explore how these associations may have altered as HE expansion
occurred.
INEQUALITY AND THE EXPANSION OF UK HIGHER EDUCATION 231
rScottish Economic Society 2004
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