Tag: access

  • Education Department rescinds EL equal access guidance

    Education Department rescinds EL equal access guidance

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    Dive Brief:

    • The U.S. Department of Education quietly rescinded Obama-era guidance that called on states and districts to ensure English learners “can participate meaningfully and equally” in school and “have equal access to a high-quality education and the opportunity to achieve their full academic potential.”

    • The 40-page Dear Colleague letter, issued in 2015, commended districts for “creating programs that recognize the heritage languages of EL students as valuable assets to preserve.” 

    • The department said in a statement to K-12 Dive that it rescinded the guidance because “it is not aligned with [Trump] Administration priorities.”  The rescission of the guidance is part of a broader effort from the Trump administration to center the English language above all others.

    Dive Insight:

    The comprehensive and long-standing guidance included information on identifying and assessing potential EL students, evaluating EL students for special education services, ensuring their parents have meaningful access to information, and avoiding “unnecessary segregation” of EL students, among other tasks districts typically undertake when serving English learners. 

    Dear Colleague letters are not legally binding, but are often used to communicate to education stakeholders administration’s priorities and policy interpretations.

    The current administration’s rescission of the guidance follows the department’s closure of the Office of English Language Acquisition, which was shut down entirely as part of the agency’s downsizing efforts that began in March. 

    Before its closure, that office helped ensure that English learners and immigrant students gained English proficiency and academic success, schools preserved students’ heritage languages and cultures, and that all students had the chance to develop biliteracy or multiliteracy skills. 

    The department’s erasure of the office and guidance that would have helped districts and states serve English learners comes amid other efforts from the Trump administration to prioritize the English language.

    In March, President Donald Trump issued an executive order declaring English the national language, despite the country still having no legally established national language. 

    The order undid a Clinton-era order that required federal agencies to improve access to their programs for those with limited English proficiency.

    The recent federal push to prioritize English over other languages and to reduce access for English learners comes at a time when the percentage of English learners in public schools is increasing. 

    There were approximately 5.3 million English learner students in fall 2021, compared with 4.6 million such students a decade prior, according to data from the Education Department last updated in 2024. 

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  • What works for supporting student access and success when there’s no money?

    What works for supporting student access and success when there’s no money?

    In 2021 AdvanceHE published our literature review which set out to demonstrate significant impact in access, retention, attainment and progression from 2016–21.

    Our aim was to help institutional decision making and improve student success outcomes. This literature has helped to develop intervention strategies in Access and Participation Plans. But the HE world has changed since review and publication.

    Recent sector data for England showed that 43 per cent of higher education providers sampled by the Office for Students (OfS) were forecasting a deficit for 2024–25 and concluded that:

    Many institutions have ongoing cost reduction programmes to help underpin their financial sustainability. Some are reducing the number of courses they offer, while others are selling assets that are no longer needed.

    All the while, institutions are, quite rightly, under pressure to maintain and enhance student success.

    The findings of our 2021 review represent a time, not so long ago, when interventions could be designed and tested without the theorising and evaluation now prescribed by OfS. We presented a suite of options to encourage innovation and experimentation. Decision making now feels somewhat different. Many institutions will be asking “what works now, as we find ourselves in a period of financial challenge and uncertainty?”

    Mattering still matters

    The overarching theme of “mattering” (France and Finney 2009, among others) was apparent in the interventions we analysed in the 2021 review. At its simplest, this is interventions or approaches which demonstrate to students that their university cares about them; that they matter. This can be manifest in the interactions they have with staff, with systems and processes, with each other; with the approaches to teaching that are adopted; with the messages (implicit and explicit) that the institution communicates.

    Arguably, a core aspect of mattering is “free” in terms of hard cash – us showing students that we care about them, their experience, and their progress, for staff to have a friendly approach, a regular check in, and meaningful and genuine dialogue with students. Such interactions may well carry an emotional cost however, and how staff are feeling – whether they feel that they matter to the institution – could impact on morale and potentially make this more difficult. We should also be mindful of the gendered labour that can be evident when teaching academics are encouraged to pick up more “pastoral” care of students; in research-intensive institutions, this may be more apparent when a greater proportion of female staff are employed on teaching focused contracts.

    In our original review we found that there were clear relationships between each student outcome area – access, retention, attainment and progression – and some interventions had impact on more than one outcome. Here are five of our examples, within the overarching theme of mattering, which remind the sector of this impact evidence whilst illustrating developments in thinking and implementation.

    Five impactful practices

    Interventions which provide financial aid or assistance to students pre and post entry were evidenced as impactful in the 2016-2021 literature. We remember the necessity of providing financial aid for students during Covid, with the government even providing additional funding for students in need. In the current financial climate, the provision of extra funding may feel like a dream for many institutions. Cost reduction pressures may mean that reducing sizable student support budgets are an easy short-term win to balance the books.

    In fact late last year, Jim Dickinson predicted just this as the first wave APPs referenced a likely decline in financial support. As evaluative data has shown, hardship funding is used by students to fund the cost of living. When money is tight, an alternative approach is to apply targeted aid where there is evidence of known disadvantage. Historically the sector has not been great at targeting, but it has become a necessity. Preventing student withdrawal has never been more important.

    We also noted that early interventions delivered pre-entry and during transition and induction were particularly effective. The sector has positioned early and foundational experiences of students as crucial for many years. When discussions about cost effectiveness look to models of student support, targeting investment in the early years of study, rather than universally applied, could have the highest impact. Continuation metrics (year one to year two retention) again drive this thinking, with discrete interventions being the simplest to evaluate but perhaps the most costly to resource. Billy Wong’s new evidence exploring an online transition module and associated continuation impact is a pertinent example of upfront design costs (creation), low delivery costs (online), and good impact (continuation).

    Another potentially low cost intervention is the design of early “low stakes” assessment opportunities that give students the chance to have early successes and early helpful feedback which, if well designed, can support students feeling that they matter. These types of assessments can support student resilience and increase the likelihood of them continuing their studies, as well as providing the institution with timely learner analytics regarding who may be in need of extra support (a key flag for potential at-risk students being non-completion of assessments). This itself is a cost saving measure as it enables the prioritisation of intervention and resource where the need is likely to be greatest.

    Pedagogically driven interventions were shown in our review to have an impact across student outcome areas. This included the purposeful design of the student’s curriculum to impact on student learning, attainment, and future progression. Many institutions are embarking on large scale curriculum change with an efficiency (and student experience/outcomes) lens. Thinking long term enough to avoid future change, yet attending to short term needs is a constant battle, as is retaining conversations of values and pedagogy.

    How we teach is perhaps one of the most powerful and “cost-free” mechanisms available, given many students may prioritise what time they can spend on campus towards attending taught sessions. An extremely common concern expressed by new (and not so new) lecturers and GTAs when encouraged to interact with students in their teaching is “But what if I get asked a question that I don’t know the answer to?” Without development and support, this fear (along with an understandable assumption that their role is to “transmit” knowledge) often results in a retreat to didactic, content heavy approaches, a safe space for the expert in the room.

    But participative sessions that embed inclusive teaching, relational and compassionate pedagogies, that create a sense of community in the classroom where contributions are valued and encouraged, where students get to know each other and us – all such approaches can show students that they matter and support their experience and their success.

    We also found that interventions which provided personal support and guidance for students impacted positively on student outcomes. One to one support can be impactful but costly. Adaptations in delivery or approach, for example, small group rather than individual sessions and models of peer support are worth exploring in a resource sensitive environment. Embedding personal and academic support within course delivery and operating an effective referral system for students when needed, is another way to get the most out of existing resources.

    Finally, the effective use of learner analytics was a common theme in our review of impact. Certainly, the proactive use of data to support the identification of student need/risk makes good moral and financial sense. However, large scale investment might be necessary to realise longer term financial gains. This might be an extension of existing infrastructure or as Peck, McCarthy and Shaw recently suggested, HE institutions might turn to AI to play a major role in recognising students who are vulnerable or in distress.

    Confronting the hidden costs

    These financial dilemmas may feel uncomfortable; someone ultimately gains less (loses out?) in a targeted approach to enhancing student success. Equality of opportunity and outcome gaps alongside financial transparency should be at the forefront of difficult decisions (use equality legislation on positive action to underpin targeting decisions as needed). Evaluation, and learning from the findings, become even more important in the context of scarce resources. While quick decisions to realise financial savings may seem attractive, a critical eye on the what works evidence base is essential to have long term impact.

    Beyond our AHE review, TASO has a useful evidence toolkit which notes cost alongside assumed impact and the strength of the evidence. As an example, the provision of information, advice and guidance and work experience are cited as low cost (one star), with high-ish impact (two stars). This evidence base only references specific evidence types (namely causal/type three evidence). The series of evidence-based frameworks (such as Student Success, Employability, Inclusive Practice) from AdvanceHE are alternative reference points.

    The caveat to all of the above is that new approaches carry a staff development cost. In fact, all of the “low cost” interventions and approaches cited need investment in the development and support of academic staff. We are often supported by brilliant teams of learning designers and educational developers, but they cannot do all this heavy lifting on their own given the scale of the task ahead. As significant challenges like AI ask us to fundamentally rethink our purpose as educators in higher education, perhaps staff development is what we should be investing in now more than ever?

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  • New Research Highlights the Power of Access Work — and the Tools We Need to Evaluate It 

    New Research Highlights the Power of Access Work — and the Tools We Need to Evaluate It 

    • This blog was kindly authored by Dr Anna Anthony, director of HEAT. HEAT provides a collaborative data service enabling higher education providers, Uni Connect partnerships and Third Sector Organisations to show the impact of their equality of opportunity delivery through a shared, standardised data system. By aggregating data from across the membership, HEAT can publish national-level impact reports for the sector. 

    It has never been more important for providers across the sector to show that access and participation activities have an impact. With resources stretched, we need to know the work we are doing is making a measurable difference. New research from HEAT reveals a series of powerful findings: 

    1. Intensive outreach boosts HE entry by up to 29% – Students who received at least 11 hours of intensive outreach were up to 29% more likely to enter higher education (HE) than matched peers receiving minimal support. 
    1. Disadvantaged students see the biggest gains – Free school meal (FSM) eligible students were up to 48% more likely to progress to HE when engaged in intensive outreach. 
    1. Uni Connect makes a difference – The largest relative increases in HE entry were observed in FSM-eligible students who participated in Uni Connect-funded activities, further demonstrating the importance of impartial outreach delivered collaboratively. 
    1. Access to selective universities improves – Intensive outreach from high-tariff providers increased the chance of progressing to a high-tariff university by 19%. 
    1. Sustained support across Key Stages is vital – Outreach delivered across both Key Stages 4 and 5 had the greatest impact, highlighting the need for long-term, multi-stage interventions throughout secondary education. 

    These findings provide compelling evidence that the work being done across the sector to widen participation is not only reaching the right students but changing trajectories at scale. Crucially, this latest research includes previously unavailable controls for student-level prior attainment — adding new rigour to our understanding of outreach impact. You can read the full report on our website. 

    What’s next for national-level research? 

    Our ability to generate this kind of national evidence is set to improve even further thanks a successful bid to the Office for Students (OfS) Innovation Fund. Through a collaboration with academics at the Centre for Education Policy and Equalising Opportunities (CEPEO) at the UCL Institute of Education, HEAT will lead on the development and piloting of a pioneering new Outreach Metric, measuring providers’ broader contribution to reducing socio-economic gaps in HE participation. More details about this project can be found here, and we look forward to sharing early findings with the sector in 2026. 

    Local-level evaluation is just as important 

    While national analyses like these are essential to understanding the big picture, the OfS rightly continues to require providers to evaluate their own delivery. Local evaluations are critical for testing specific interventions, understanding how programmes work in different contexts, and learning how to adapt practice to improve outcomes. Yet robust evaluation is often resource-intensive and can be out of reach for smaller teams. 

    This is where use of a sector-wide system for evaluation helps – shared systems like HEAT provide the infrastructure to track student engagement and outcomes at a fraction of the cost of building bespoke systems. Thanks to a decade of collaboration, we now have a system which the sector designed and built together, and which provides the tools necessary to deliver the evaluation that the OfS require providers to publish as part of their Access and Participation Plans (APP).  

    We’re also continuing to improve our infrastructure. Thanks to a second successful bid to the OfS Innovation Fund we are building system functionality to support providers to use their tracking data when evaluating their APP interventions. This includes an ‘automated comparator group tool’ that will streamline the process of identifying matched participant and non-participant groups based on confounding variables. By reducing the need for manual data work, the tool will make it easier to apply quasi-experimental designs and generate more robust evidence of impact. 

    Next steps – sharing through publication 

    With all these tools at their disposal, the next step is to support the sector to publish their evaluation. We need shared learning to avoid duplication and siloed working. HEAT is currently collaborating with TASO to deliver the Higher Education Evaluation Library (HEEL), which will collect, and share, intervention-level evaluation reports in one accessible place for the first time. By collating this evidence, the HEEL will help practitioners and policymakers alike to see what works, what doesn’t, and where we can improve together. 

    If we want to continue delivering meaningful progress on access and participation, we need both meaningful, critical local evaluation and powerful national insights. Centralised data tracking infrastructure can give the sector the tools it needs to do both. 

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  • A 20-Year Reflection on Transparency and the Illusion of Access (Glen McGhee)

    A 20-Year Reflection on Transparency and the Illusion of Access (Glen McGhee)

    The cancellation of the latest NACIQI (National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity) meeting brought back bitter memories that refuse to fade. 

    It’s been twenty years since I traveled to Washington, DC—dressed in my best lobbying attire and carrying a meticulous roster of Department of Education staff—to visit the Office of Postsecondary Education (OPE) on K Street. My goal was simple, even noble: to seek answers about the opaque workings of accreditation in American higher education. What I encountered instead was a wall of silence, surveillance, and authoritarianism.

    I stepped off the elevator on the seventh floor of the Department building and signed in. Under “Purpose of Visit,” I wrote: Reform. I was calm, professional, and respectful. I asked to see the NACIQI Chair, Bonnie, hoping that she would be willing to speak with me about a system that, even then, was falling into disrepair. But what happened next still infuriates me.

    Within seconds, two armed, uniformed guards approached me. They didn’t ask questions. They gave an ultimatum: leave or be arrested.

    I eventually complied, descending into the lobby, still stunned. From there I began dialing—one by one—through the directory of names I had so carefully assembled. I called staffers, analysts, assistants, anyone who might answer. Not a single person picked up. I could feel the eyes of the guards watching me, one of them posted on the mezzanine like a sniper keeping watch over a public enemy. I was not dangerous. I was not disruptive. I was, however, unwanted.

    The next day, I turned to my Congressman, Allen Boyd, whose LA generously tried to intervene. His office contacted OPE, attempting to broker a meeting on my behalf. The Department didn’t even return his call. Apparently, a sitting member of Congress—who didn’t sit on a high-ranking committee—carried no weight at the fortress of federal education oversight.

    This most recent overstepping by US ED—unilaterally postponing NACIQI’s Summer 2025 meeting—reminds observers of how limited the oversight provided by NACIQI really is. It is, apparently, nothing more than a performative shell that fulfills ceremonial functions, and not much more.

    I would argue that this latest episode reveals that NACIQI is less an independent watchdog and more a ceremonial body with limited real power, and so my view differs somewhat from David Halperin, because he sees more substantive activity than I do.

    The history of ACICS (Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools) and SACS (Southern Association of Colleges) appearing before NACIQI illustrates how regulatory capture can manifest not only through industry influence, but also through bureaucratic design and process control. The OPE’s central role, combined with NACIQI’s limited enforcement power, has allowed failing accreditors to retain recognition for years, even in the face of overwhelming evidence of noncompliance and harm to students.

    The illusion of accountability has long been a feature of the accreditation system, not a flaw. NACIQI meetings, when they occur, are tightly scripted, with carefully managed testimony and limited public engagement. The real decisions are made elsewhere, behind closed doors, often under the influence of powerful lobbying groups and entrenched bureaucracies that resist transparency and reform at every turn.

    Despite the increasing scrutiny on higher education and growing public awareness of student debt, poor educational outcomes, and sham institutions, the federal recognition of accreditors remains an elite-controlled process. It is a closed loop. Institutions, accreditors, and government officials all play their roles in a carefully choreographed performance that rarely leads to systemic change. The result is a system that protects institutions at the expense of students, particularly the most vulnerable—low-income, first-generation, and minority students who are often targeted by predatory schools hiding behind federal accreditation.

    This is the reality of the U.S. Department of Education’s accreditation apparatus: inaccessible, unaccountable, and increasingly symbolic. NACIQI, far from being an independent advisory body, has always functioned as a ceremonial front for political appointees and entrenched interests. It is, as I see it, just another arm of Vishnu—multiplicitous, all-seeing, but ultimately indifferent to critique or reform. Whether it’s chaired by a bureaucrat or a former wrestling executive like Linda McMahon, the outcome is the same: the process is rigged to exclude dissent and suppress scrutiny.

    And yet, pundits today still fail to grasp the implications. They speak of accreditation as if it were a technocratic process guided by evidence and integrity. They act as if NACIQI were a neutral arbiter. But I know otherwise, because I was there—thrown out, silenced, and treated like a trespasser in the very institution that claims to protect educational quality and student interest.

    This is more than personal bitterness. It’s about structural rot. When critics are expelled, when staff are muzzled, and when public servants ignore elected representatives, we are not dealing with oversight—we are witnessing capture. Accreditation in this country serves the accreditors and the institutions, not students, not taxpayers, and certainly not reformers.

    Two decades later, the anger remains. So does the silence.

    Sources:
    Department of Education building directory and procedures (2005)
    Congressional Office of Rep. Allen Boyd (archival record, 2005)
    Public notices regarding NACIQI meeting cancellations (2024–2025)
    David Halperin, Republic Report

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  • For some, the heat is an access issue

    For some, the heat is an access issue

    When you think about the accessibility and inclusivity of our learning and working environments, does temperature come to mind?

    Discussions about temperature can be complicated because they are quickly confused with preference, meaning that by raising the issue someone risks being viewed as selfish or fussy.

    But let’s think of this another way for a moment. I love nuts – others might not like them. But still others are allergic to nuts and could be made seriously ill by them.

    The same principle is true about temperature – you might have a preference for warmer or cooler temperatures, but only at extreme levels would this preference become a health issue.

    But for colleagues and students with a wide range of health conditions, even small temperature changes are a health issue.

    Temperature as an EDI issue

    I am surprised how hard it is to find information that openly discusses temperature as an EDI issue. There is widespread information discussing employers’ legal responsibility to provide a safe working temperature – articles about the harmful effects of extreme temperature on health and the likelihood of this increasing due to climate change.

    However, discussions about how smaller workplace temperature changes can have a disabling effect now is generally hidden on pages relevant to specific groups or health conditions.

    By smaller temperature changes, I am referring to apparently inconsequential things like walking, moving between spaces (e.g. outside to inside or between rooms) or the crowded rooms.

    Many people would adapt to these situations automatically e.g. taking off a jumper. However, for others these small everyday increases or decreases in temperature require planning, and can cause anxiety and significant discomfort or health impact.

    Menopause awareness discussions are leading the way in voicing the impact of workplace temperature and employer responsibility. Research highlights the prevalence of heat-related issues linked to menopause and the importance of the ability to control local temperature to help manage symptoms in the work environment.

    Significantly, however, studies also voice the shame individuals encounter in living through this normal and widespread experience in the workplace:

    I spent most of my time when I used to work with my head in a fan and colleagues laughing at my hot flushes. It was too hot in the office for me and I felt hot sweaty and embarrassed all the time.

    However, menopause is far from the only reason a small temperature change might have a significant impact on health and wellbeing. Many health conditions are also affected.

    The correlation between temperature and exacerbation of symptoms is perhaps particularly unsurprising with multiple sclerosis – before MRI scanners, observing a patient’s functioning in a hot bath was a key part of the diagnostic process.

    Likewise, the MS Trust states that 60-80 per cent of people with MS find symptoms worsen with even small changes in temperature. As Jennifer Powell succinctly puts it:

    Heat is kryptonite to anyone with multiple sclerosis.

    What exactly does ‘worsening symptoms’ mean for someone with MS? It might include a deterioration in mobility, balance, vision, and brain functioning:

    “Heat makes my nervous system act a bit like a computer with a broken cooling fan. First it acts a bit strange, then programs start crashing and then you get the dreaded ‘blue screen of death’ when all you can do is switch off for a while then start all over again when things have cooled down.

    It may also trigger or exacerbate nerve pain ranging from itching or numbness to stabbing or electric shock sensations. This is a far cry from preference.

    But again, MS is not the only health condition affected by small changes in heat. When you start to scratch the surface, the range of conditions that may be affected is startling. They include circulatory, rheumatological (e.g. Lupus, rheumatoid arthritis), mental health, neurological (e.g. spinal damage) and neurodevelopmental (e.g. autism) conditions.

    Sometimes it is the treatment, rather than condition itself, that causes difficulties with temperature regulation.

    As well as the chemotherapy causing difficulties with temperature regulation, Rebekah Hughes describes how it triggered early menopause. She also raises the important point that hot flushes affect individuals differently – for some they might be barely noticeable, for others they severely impact daily life. We need to allow space for differences in individual experience.

    What is the cost of ignoring this issue?

    From the discussion so far, we can clearly see that temperature affects some staff and students’ experience of normal day-to-day work and study, and impacts their health, wellbeing and sense of belonging. It may also impact performance in high-stakes events.

    Typical academic high-stakes events include assessed presentations, interviews, conferences and exams. They often cause temporary stress, which may cause small increases in body temperature.

    Individuals usually have reduced personal control to make their own adaptations in these contexts. This raises important questions about the inclusivity of our assessment, recruitment and professional development opportunities. These activities are gatekeeping moments in an individual’s academic and professional journey. However, there is a strong case that the activities and the environments in which they take place may have an unrecognised, yet substantial and possibly disabling, impact on some due to hidden temperature factors.

    Next steps?

    We might be left thinking that this is an impossible situation – some people need warmer working conditions, others cooler. We might be afraid to start a conversation about temperature for fear of opening a can of worms. However, we do well to remember that some individuals are affected by multiple health conditions – some that make them susceptible to heat, others that make them susceptible to cold. They have to find a way to manage this complexity, and if we are committed to EDI, we must too.

    Moreover, the first step is not to try and jump to a quick-fix solution. Instead, we simply need to be aware that this hidden issue might be affecting a surprising number of our students and colleagues.

    We need to continue to develop a compassionate campus culture where colleagues and students feel safe to share the challenges they face and the strategies that help, and a space where they will be heard.

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  • Causes and consequences of access disparities by ethnicity

    Causes and consequences of access disparities by ethnicity

    If you haven’t looked recently at the stats on the different rates of HE participation by ethnicity, you may find them quite striking.

    Today, young people from ethnic minority backgrounds are progressing to university in record numbers.

    According to the most recent figures from DfE, the proportion of school pupils in England of white ethnicity who progress to HE by age 19 (41.8 per cent) is comfortably exceeded by the corresponding proportions of school pupils of Asian (68.4 per cent), Black (62.4 per cent) and mixed (51.8 per cent) ethnicity.

    White school pupils now also have the lowest progression rate to more selective high tariff universities. Statistics concerning the intersection of ethnicity and socioeconomic background are even more striking – Black school pupils who are also free school meals (FSM) eligible, for example, have a higher HE participation rate (51.3 per cent) than white pupils who are not FSM eligible (45.1 per cent).

    Can these gaps be explained?

    Whilst as a sector we (quite rightly) focus more on the gap in degree-level attainment by ethnicity (where white students typically outperform those from ethnic minority backgrounds), it is still worth considering why gaps in HE access by ethnicity are so large and what the longer term ramifications of these gaps may be. I recently published a piece of academic research which sought to understand the drivers of HE participation gaps by ethnicity.

    This is a much less straightforward task than trying to understand the drivers of disparities in HE participation by socioeconomic background or gender. A number of statistical modelling exercises, using England’s rich administrative datasets, have shown that gaps in HE participation by FSM eligibility and gender tend to almost vanish once average differences in school attainment are controlled for statistically. Of course, this does not excuse such disparities, but it does help us to better understand why they exist.

    However, when it comes to the link between ethnicity, school attainment and the likelihood of going to university, the relationship here seems to be far from straightforward. For example, Black school pupils in England get slightly lower grades, on average, in their GCSE exams than their white counterparts. Yet at the same time Black pupils are (quite comfortably) more likely to end up progressing to university. At first glance therefore, these statistics appear somewhat counter-intuitive.

    In an analysis of linked National Pupil Database (NPD) and HESA data, I discovered that to better understand overall disparities in HE access by ethnicity, we need to investigate how these disparities vary at different points along the overall school attainment spectrum.

    This can be done using a really straightforward method. First, take an entire cohort of all state school pupils in England (I used the one who took their GCSE exams in 2015) and divide them up into five attainment quintiles based on their grades in their best 8 GCSE subjects. Then, within each of these attainment sub-populations, investigate how HE participation varies by ethnicity.

    For higher attainers, the results were largely unremarkable. But for those with slightly below average attainment, the results were truly staggering.

    The participation gulf for those with lower school attainment

    Young people from ethnic minority backgrounds with high attainment are more likely to end up at university than their high-attaining white British counterparts, but only slightly so. For example, 81.2 per cent of those pupils who were both white British and in the highest quintile of attainment ended up at university, compared to 83.3 per cent of high attainers of Black Caribbean ethnicity and 87.7 per cent of high-attainers of Pakistani ethnicity. So far, so “meh”.

    But consider what happens at the second lowest quintile of attainers. This time, only 9.7 per cent of all white British students in this attainment bracket end up at university. At this same level of attainment, the HE progression rate for those of Pakistani ethnicity is 38.4 per cent, while the rate for those of Black African ethnicity is 52.1 per cent.

    You can take a look at all the percentages here in Table 4 of my paper if you’re really keen, but I can sum it up for you quite simply. While young people from ethnic minority backgrounds with high school attainment are slightly more likely to go to university than high attainers from white British backgrounds, lower attainers from ethnic minority backgrounds are considerably more likely to end up at university than their lower attaining white British counterparts.

    And when I say considerably, I mean considerably.

    Implications

    The upshot of all this is quite simple. Rightly or wrongly, once you get below a certain level of attainment, young people of white British ethnicity just don’t seem interested in going to university anymore. On the other hand, lower attainers from ethnic minority backgrounds are still quite keen to participate in HE, even though their level of attainment might mean that they may face a somewhat constrained choice of different institutions and courses.

    This leads us then to another question – why are young people from ethnic minority backgrounds (especially those with lower attainment) – so much keener to go to university? One somewhat unhelpful answer to this question was offered in the controversial Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities report which was commissioned by the previous Conservative government. In the view of the commissioners, many people in ethnic minority communities have “an exaggerated respect for the academic route as the only path to success and economic safety on the part of ethnic minorities”. This perspective of course conveniently ignores another explanation which is well grounded in the sociological literature, which is that within ethnic minority communities, becoming as well-qualified as possible is seen as a necessary strategy to adopt in order to counteract the effects of racial discrimination in the labour market.

    Those of white ethnicity, in contrast, may enjoy more latitude to follow alternative pathways with the confidence that they are likely to fall on their feet in the end whatever happens.

    Aesop’s fables

    One thing we know for sure is that, for those with slightly lower school attainment, white and ethnic minority students seem to be making different choices on average at age 18. How might this all pan out in the longer term? Or, to put it another way, how do graduates with lower school attainment fare in the jobs market, compared to non-graduates with lower school attainment?

    When I look at analyses of the LEO earnings data for answers to this question, what I see reminds me of that familiar tale of the race between the tortoise and the hare. School leavers with lower attainment (defined here as not having at least 5 A*-C grades at GCSE) who do not go to university are the hares who dash out of the traps fairly quickly, typically earning wages (albeit fairly low ones) between the ages of 18-21. They have typically enjoyed slightly higher total earnings by age 30 than those lower attainers who went to university, who tend to enjoy only a fairly limited graduate earnings premium at first.

    But the graduate tortoises tend to plod their way to greater career earnings in the end, since graduates are much more likely to enjoy wage increases through midlife, whilst the non-graduate hares take an earnings siesta.

    Of course, most analysis of LEO so far concerns cohorts of people born in the mid to late 1980s. Without a crystal ball, young people today with lower school attainment can’t really be sure whether going to university (from a career and earnings perspective) will be a smart move or not. Either decision could be justified.

    Going to university has always tended to pay off (on average) so far, even as naysayers have continued to argue that the jobs market is becoming too saturated with graduates. On the other hand, continued (and very much welcome) increases in the salaries of less-educated workers (brought about in part by successive real-terms increases to the National Living Wage) may serve to both reduce the size of the graduate earnings premium for lower attainers whilst also increasing the opportunity cost (though foregone earnings) of attending university.

    Only the longitudinal studies of the future will confirm whether young people today with lower school attainment will turn out to be better off in the jobs market by going to university or not.

    However, if the fortunes of lower attaining graduates turn out to be different on average to the fortunes of lower attaining non-graduates, we can be pretty confident that disparities in fortunes by ethnicity will follow.

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  • Investing in Student Engagement: University of Georgia Equips Faculty and Students with Free Access to Top Hat

    Investing in Student Engagement: University of Georgia Equips Faculty and Students with Free Access to Top Hat

    New license agreement provides all students and faculty with free access to Top Hat, reinforcing UGA’s strategic focus on affordability, student success, and innovation in teaching.

    TORONTO – June 17, 2025 – Top Hat, the leader in student engagement solutions for higher education, today announced that the University of Georgia has entered into a new enterprise agreement that will provide campus-wide access to the Top Hat platform at no cost to students or faculty. This initiative supports UGA’s continued efforts to promote high-impact teaching practices, student affordability, and innovation in the classroom.

    Top Hat’s interactive teaching platform as well as content authoring and customization tools will be available to UGA faculty to enhance in-person, online, and hybrid courses across disciplines. With this agreement, UGA joins a growing number of leading institutions investing in Top Hat to empower instructors to improve learning outcomes and student success at scale.

    “We are proud to support the University of Georgia in its efforts to deliver proven, student-centered teaching practices,” said Maggie Leen, CEO of Top Hat. “This partnership ensures every student and educator at UGA has access to the tools they need to drive learning and achievement, while reinforcing the university’s focus on affordability, innovation, and evidence-based instruction.”

    This initiative reflects UGA’s commitment to both student affordability and instructional excellence. With Top Hat, faculty can adopt and customize low- or no-cost course materials—including OpenStax and OER—helping to reduce costs for students while delivering engaging, evidence-based instruction. The platform enables instructors to easily integrate active learning strategies, such as frequent low-stakes assessments and reflection prompts, which are proven to enhance student engagement and academic outcomes. Top Hat’s AI-powered assistant, Ace, streamlines course prep by generating high-quality questions directly from lecture content, and supports students with on-demand study help and unlimited practice opportunities—reinforcing learning both in and out of the classroom. Real-time data from polls, quizzes, and assignments also empowers educators to continuously monitor progress and improve instructional impact.

    The University of Georgia is recognized nationally for excellence in teaching and learning, student completion, and affordability. The enterprise agreement with Top Hat is part of UGA’s broader commitment to building a world-class learning environment and increasing access to affordable, high impact teaching and  learning resources.

    About Top Hat

    As the leader in student engagement solutions for higher education, Top Hat enables educators to employ proven student-centered teaching practices through interactive content and tools enhanced by AI, and activities in in-person, online and hybrid classroom environments. To accelerate student impact and return on investment, the company provides a range of change management services, including faculty training and instructional design support, integration and data management services, and digital content customization. Thousands of faculty at 900 leading North American colleges and universities use Top Hat to create meaningful, engaging and accessible learning experiences for students before, during, and after class.

    Contact [email protected] for media inquiries.

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  • Counslr Launches in Texas to Increase Access to Mental Health Support for Staff and Students

    Counslr Launches in Texas to Increase Access to Mental Health Support for Staff and Students

    New York, NY –  Counslr, a leading B2B mental health and wellness platform, announced today that it has expanded its footprint into the State of Texas starting with a partnership with Colorado Independent School District (ISD) in Colorado City, TX. This partnership will empower students and staff to prioritize their mental health by enabling them to access unlimited live texting sessions with Counslr’s licensed and vetted mental health support professionals, who are available on-demand, 24/7/365 and also utilize the app’s robust and curated wellness resources. By increasing accessibility to Counslr’s round-the-clock support, Colorado ISD aims to empower those silent sufferers who previously did not or could not access care, whether due to cost, inconvenience, or stigma.

    Texas is facing a critical mental health care crisis, with over 95% of its counties officially designated as Mental Health Professional Shortage Areas. This alarming statistic underscores the severe lack of access to mental health services across the state, particularly in rural, border, and frontier communities. This resource scarcity underscores the urgent need for additional resources and innovative solutions to bridge this critical care gap for school communities.

    “We’re excited to partner with Counslr to bring innovative, accessible mental health resources to our school community,” said Alison Alvarez, Family and Community Engagement Coordinator, of Colorado ISD. “This partnership empowers our 6-12 grade students and staff with the support they need to thrive—both in and out of the classroom.”

    As factors such as academic pressures, social media influence, burnout and world events contribute to an increase in mental health challenges for young people, schools throughout the country are recognizing the growing need to offer more accessible, prevention-focused resources. A recent study found that digital mental health apps like Counslr can play an important role in expanding access to mental health support, especially for school communities. Most users turned to Counslr through on-demand sessions, showing just how valuable it is to have someone available in the moment when support is needed most. Interestingly, more than 80% of sessions happened between 7 PM and 5 AM, a time when traditional counseling services are usually unavailable. This suggests that Counslr helps fill a critical gap, offering students and school community members a reliable way to talk to licensed counselors around the clock. The app was also used for a wide range of concerns, highlighting its potential to meet diverse mental health needs through both immediate and scheduled support.

    “As we expand across the country, we’re proud to partner with new school communities to ensure that every student, regardless of location or background, has access to the mental health support they deserve,” said Josh Liss, Counslr CEO. Adding that, “With most of Counslr’s users being first-time care seekers, we’re excited to help reach those traditionally unreachable, who need help but do not or cannot access it, no matter where they are located.”

    ABOUT COUNSLR

    Counslr is a text-based mental health support application that provides unlimited access to robust wellness resources and live texting sessions with licensed professionals, 24/7/365. Users can access support on-demand within two minutes of opening the app, or by scheduled appointment. Through real-time texting, users enjoy one-on-one, private communication with a licensed counselor that can be conducted anytime, anywhere. Counslr was designed to help individuals deal with life’s day-to-day issues, empowering individuals to address concerns while they are “small” to help ensure that they stay “small”. Counslr partners with organizations of all shapes and sizes (companies, unions, nonprofits, universities/colleges, high schools, etc) so that these entities can provide Counslr’s services to their employees/members/students at no direct cost. For more information, please visit www.counslr.com.

    eSchool News Staff
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  • Promoting access to higher education worldwide

    Promoting access to higher education worldwide

    by Graeme Atherton

    The shift to the political right in many countries in the world, including it appears the UK now, presents a new set of challenges for equitable access and success to higher education. Not that it needed any new ones. Inequalities in participation in higher education are pervasive, entrenched and low on the list of priorities of most governments. Since the early 2010s we have been working with other organisations across the world including the World Bank and UNESCO to understand the extent and nature of these inequalities but more importantly to initiate activities to address them. In 2016 working with colleagues including the late, great Geoff Whitty I undertook a project to bring together as much secondary data we could on who participates in higher education by social background across the world.

    The Drawing the Global Access Map report found that in all the countries where we could find data (over 90%) higher education participation was unequal. The extent of this inequality differs but it binds together countries and higher education systems of all varieties. Following convening 2 global conferences on higher education access around the time of this report in an attempt to galvanise the global higher education community, we then launched World Access to Higher Education Day (WAHED) in 2018. The aim of WAHED was to create a vehicle that would enable universities to launch activities to address inequalities in access and success on the day in their own place. As the pandemic hit we also started a global online conference and up to 2022 over 1000 organisations from over 100 countries engaged in WAHED. We also produced research to mark the day including the All Around the World – Equity Policies Across the Globe report in 2018 which looked at policies on higher education equity in over 70 countries. The report found that only 32% of the countries surveyed have defined specific participation targets for any equity group and only 11% have formulated a comprehensive equity strategy.

    WAHED played an important role as a catalyst for activism, especially in contexts where individuals or departments felt that they were acting in isolation. However, progress will be limited if efforts are restricted just to an International Day of Action. Hence, in December 2024, working again with the World Bank, UNESCO as well as Equity Practitioners in Higher Education in Australasia (EPHEA), and a number of educational foundations, we launched the World Access to Higher Education Network (WAHEN). The aim of WAHEN is to construct an alliance for global, collective action on higher education equity and more information can be found here. It will focus on:

    •              Capacity Building via the sharing, professionalisation and enhancement of practice in learning, teaching and pre-HE outreach

    •              Collaboration – enabling organisations to formulate and deliver shared goals through a set of global communities of practice.

    •              Convening – bringing together those from across countries and sectors to affect change in higher education through World Access to Higher Education Day.

    •              Campaigning – advocating and working with policymakers and governments around the world producing research and evidence.

    •              Critical thinking – creating an online space where the knowledge based on ‘what works’ in equitable access and success can be developed & shared.

    It was because there was a national organisation that works to tackle inequalities in higher education in the UK, the National Education Opportunities Network (NEON), that I founded and led for 13 years, that WAHED and WAHEN happened. NEON led these efforts to build a global network. There remains a large way to go for WAHEN to be sustainable and impactful. We are working intently on how to position WAHEN and how it should focus its efforts. Inequalities in access and success are locally defined. They can’t be defined from a Euro-centric perspective, and they can also only be tackled through primarily work that is regional or national. The added value of international collaboration in this area needs to be articulated, it can’t be assumed. But at the same time, nor should the default assumption be that such a network or collaboration is less required where equitable access and success is concerned than in other parts of higher education. This assumption encapsulates the very problem at hand, ie the lack of willingness to recognise the extent of these inequalities and make the changes necessary to start to address them.

    The present challenges to higher education presented by the global shift to the right brings into sharp focus the consequences of a failure to deal with these inequalities. Universities and left leaning governments are unable to frame higher education as open and available to all with the potential to enter. The accusations of elitism and the threats to academic freedom etc then become an easier sell to electorates for whom higher education has never mattered, or those in their family/community. It is more important than ever then that something like WAHEN exists. It is essential that we develop the tools that give higher education systems across the world to become more equitable and to resist populist narratives, and that we do this now.

    Professor Graeme Atherton is Director of the World Access to Higher Education Network (WAHEN) and Vice Principal, Ruskin College, Oxford.

    A hybrid conference Access and Geopolitics: Next Steps in Tackling the Equity Crisis in Global Higher Education, was held on 3 June 2025 at the Department of Education in Oxford, jointly organised by WAHEN, The Centre for Skills, Knowledge and Organisational Performance (SKOPE) and the Centre for Global Higher Education (CGHE). There were almost 40 presentations on: the politics – and geopolitics – of widening participation; the challenge of financing access; private provision and higher education as a public good; populism and the equity ‘backlash’; and, the challenge of generating meaningful participation data. Speakers included: John Blake, Director for Fair Access and Participation at the Office for Students, England;  Dr Jamil Salmi, global tertiary education expert; Professor Shamit Saggar, Executive Director of Australian Centre for Student Equity and Success; Professor Rachel Brooks, Professor of Higher Education, Oxford and President of the British Sociological Association; Professor Johanna Waters, Professor of Human Geography, UCL; Dr James Robson, Director of SKOPE and Associate Professor of Tertiary Education Systems, Oxford; Graeme Atherton, Director of the World Access to Higher Education Network (WAHEN) and Vice Principal, Ruskin College, Oxford; and Danielle Watkis, DPhil student, Department of Education, Oxford. A full record of the event will soon be available on the CGHE website.

    Author: SRHE News Blog

    An international learned society, concerned with supporting research and researchers into Higher Education

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  • College parents speak out in new survey: Weekly updates, mental health info and more access needed

    College parents speak out in new survey: Weekly updates, mental health info and more access needed

    As colleges nationwide double down on enrollment, retention, and student success strategies, one key voice is becoming harder to ignore: the family. According to the 2025 Current Families Report released by CampusESP, families want more updates, more access, and more say in the college journey, and they’re increasingly dissatisfied when they don’t get it. In addition, when parents do receive the information they need to support their student, research shows significant gains in student yield and retention.

    The survey, conducted across 81 colleges and universities and with more than 32,000 parents and supporters of current students, is the most comprehensive look at family engagement to date. And the findings are impossible to miss.

    Mental health, money, and mentorship

    Nearly half of all parents talk to their student daily, with the number jumping to over 60% for low-income and first-generation households. These families aren’t just chatting about weekend plans — they’re offering support on mental health (53%), academic advice (57%), and student life (69%).

    “Parents aren’t bystanders — they’re active advisors,” says the report. “And they need the right tools to guide their students.”

    Communication expectations are high

    A staggering 77% of families want to hear from their student’s college weekly or more, up 12% in just four years. While email is still the go-to channel, the demand for text messaging is surging, especially among Black, Hispanic, low-income, and first-gen families.

    However, a gap remains: 48% of families prefer text, but only 28% of colleges offer it.

    Trust wavers without transparency

    Families are becoming more skeptical about the return on their tuition investment. Only 59% say college is worth the cost — a sharp drop from 77% the year before. Their #1 request? More info on career services and job placement, which ironically ranked lowest in satisfaction.

    Families want in, but feel left out

    Even when they receive a high number of communications from their student’s college, families still feel sidelined. Just 46% are satisfied with their opportunities to get involved on campus, down from 63% last year. And only 30% feel they have good ways to connect with other families.

    Yet the desire is there: 38% want to be more involved, and 22% say they’re more likely to donate to their student’s college than their own alma mater.

    Financial aid frustration runs deep

    Navigating costs is a pain point. 59% say it’s hard to pay for college, and only 25% found financial aid information easy to understand.

    And with confusion comes attempts at self-education. Nearly half of families rely on their student’s login to access key financial records—posing serious data privacy concerns.

    The report confirms what many enrollment leaders have long suspected: families aren’t just part of the support system — they are the support system. The challenge for institutions? Reaching them with the right information, in the right format, at the right time.

    “Family engagement isn’t optional — it’s a strategic advantage,” the report concludes.

    Download the full 2025 Current Families Report from CampusESP to explore the findings and access actionable strategies for turning family influence into institutional success.

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