This blog was kindly authored by Hinna Abid, Doctoral Candidate at the University of Sheffield.
The Office for Students Strategy 2025-2030 lays out the foundations for English universities new Access and Participation Plans (APPs), outlining the steps that universities should take to improve equality of opportunity, ensuring that disadvantaged groups can access, succeed and progress from higher education. Through these APPs, higher education providers detail the activities and intervention strategies which they will take over the course of a four-year period to address equality of opportunity, while also setting out clear steps to measure and evaluate the impact of their intervention strategies.
Universities produce their own APPs, however, these need to be in line with OfS guidance. The strategic priorities include closing awarding gaps, removing socio-economic barriers, enhancing access, success, progression, and improving mental health through wellbeing support. These are all welcome and ambitious goals, however, the diversity of under-represented groups, including the varied needs of mature students, raises legitimate questions about whether sufficiently bespoke and effective support can be delivered in practice.
One-size-fits-none: why blanket policies fail mature students
Mature students represent a diverse and varying demographic group, not only in terms of different age groups (21-24; 25-29; 30-39; 40-49; 50 & above), but also in contrasting social, cultural, economic and educational backgrounds. Their issues cannot be addressed under the overarching term mature, as there are almost three generations informing these students’ experiences. According to the Higher Education Statistics Agency 2023/24 (HESA), mature students accounted for 63% of the student population in UK higher education. Despite this substantial number, their varied and intersecting characteristics, as well as frequent additional financial and familial responsibilities, complicate their ability to participate in higher education. These intersectional factors are not captured by HESA or within many universities’ APP reports. According to the Office for Students 2020 report, mature students exhibit lower retention rates, lower degree attainments and lower enrolment rates at top-tier UK higher education providers compared to their younger counterparts. A deeper analysis of their issues is necessary. Disaggregated data on mature students could be used as a starting point for designing effective and realistic intervention strategies.
Lack of disaggregated data on mature students undermines effective intervention strategies
Overall reports and policy documents concerning mature students lack detailed, disaggregated data based on social class, gender, distinct age groups, disability, ethnicity, mental health and caring responsibilities. Two profound examples of these can be seen in the following:
- HESA in England, unlike Scottish and Northern Ireland higher education providers, do not collect ‘dependents on entry’ data from students, treating the childcare aspect of student invisibly, when it is actually a significant factor compounding the challenges of many mature students. It is only through alternative routes such as HEPI’s Student Academic Experience Survey 2024, the National Union of Students and Million Plus that an insight into the caring responsibilities of these learners can be found. The lack of data on the care aspect of mature students misleads interventions, as an issue can only be addressed if it is acknowledged, and an issue can only be acknowledged if it is evidenced through statistics.
- Universities’ Access and Participation Plans provide generic information on the access, continuation, attainment and completion rate of mature students; with the Office for Students 2024-Student Outcomes confirming a sector-wide drop in the continuation rate of mature students. Again, analysis of this decline in mature student continuation rates lacks an intersectional angle as age, social class, ethnicity, disability, mental health, and caring responsibilities interact to drive disparities. Although some universities’ latest APPs, have made moves towards partial intersectional analysis in an attempt to understand the under-recognised forms of disparities, APPs largely remain insufficiently robust,. This restricts universities’ ability to completely understand the mature student population and the disadvantages proliferated by multiple intersecting characteristics. Although it is not be possible for universities to completely understand the student population and their disadvantages, problematic areas, such as the continuous decline in retention of mature students, could be addressed through disaggregated data and an intersectional analysis of this cohort, for effective implementation of intervention strategies.
Realistic and effective intervention strategies
Universities record and analyse barriers to access, retention, progress, and success through factors of socio-economic status, free school meals, ethnicity, disability, gender, age and, more recently, mental health conditions. These are characteristics are however, as argued in this blog, frequently not analysed through an intersectional lens. Universities could make progress in this direction by taking the following steps:
- Ensure the systematic collection and recording of disaggregated data across all protected characteristics and wider socio-demographic factors within each broad cohort. In the case of mature students, this should include, but not be limited to, separate data on gender, detailed age groups, ethnicity, socio-economic status, disability, mental health conditions, and caring responsibilities.
- Adopt intersectional analysis to address areas of concern within each broad cohort. Understanding effective interventions for enhancing mature students’ retention and progression requires examining the compounded and overlapping effects of multiple characteristics – gender, social class, detailed age groups, disability, ethnicity, mental health conditions, and caring responsibilities – rather than treating these factors in isolation.
- An intersectional approach should be applied consistently across all student cohorts, not just mature students. By examining how multiple characteristics combine rather than treating them as isolated issues, institutions can reveal hidden layers of compounded disadvantage and design more targeted, effective interventions.