Tag: mobility

Podcast: Industrial strategy, cashpoint colleges, social mobility

This week on the podcast we examine the government’s new industrial strategy and what it really means for higher education – from regional clusters and research funding to skills bootcamps and spin-out support.

Will the plans finally integrate universities into the UK’s economic future, or is this another case of policy promises outpacing delivery?

Plus we discuss the franchising scandal and the damning case for urgent reform, and ask whether new research on social mobility challenges the sector’s claims about access, aspiration, and advancement.

With Katie Normington, Vice Chancellor at De Montfort University, Johnny Rich, Chief Executive at the Engineering Professors’ Council and Push, James Coe, Associate Editor at Wonkhe and presented by Mark Leach, Editor-in-Chief at Wonkhe.

Higher education and the industrial strategy priority areas

The cashpoint campus comeback franchising, fraud, and the failure to learn from the FE experience

On the move: how young people’s mobility responds to and reinforces geographical inequalities

Inequalities in Access to Professional Occupations

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June 26, 2025
Social mobility needs a whole-university rethink

For more than two decades, widening access has been the sector’s flagship social mobility project. But what if that narrow focus is holding us back?

A new report from the Social Market Foundation, Leave to Achieve?, urges us to think more expansively. Sponsored by the University of Warwick and the University of Southampton, the project was commissioned to recognise and champion the significant work that universities already do to improve social mobility. This report presents a positive picture with some excellent case studies of good practice. Yet we wanted to challenge the status quo by posing a new question of how this role could be further strengthened in an evolving political, economic and demographic landscape.

It’s a timely intervention. In November 2024, the Secretary of State for Education wrote to university leaders setting out five clear priorities: improved access and outcomes for disadvantaged students, stronger civic engagement, enhanced contributions to economic growth, higher teaching standards, and greater financial efficiency. Leave to Achieve? presents a compelling blueprint for how institutions might meet that challenge – not by doing more of the same, but by doing things differently.

Getting in isn’t the same as getting on

Yes, disadvantaged students are more likely to go to university than they were 20 years ago. But gaps remain – especially at high-tariff providers, where the life-changing graduate premium is highest. And even when disadvantaged students do get in, they’re less likely to complete, more likely to graduate with lower-class degrees, and face a persistent class pay gap.

These access gains have also been geographically uneven. In parts of the country, a student’s chances of going to university – let alone a selective one – remain depressingly slim.

This aligns with long-standing evidence from the Sutton Trust and the Social Mobility Commission, both of which have consistently highlighted the enduring impact of regional inequality and the limits of “national” mobility narratives. The Social Mobility Commission’s “State of the Nation” reports, for example, show that young people from some post-industrial regions are still far less likely to progress to higher education than their peers elsewhere – despite similar levels of talent and ambition.

The takeaway? Real social mobility is not just about “getting in” – it’s about outcomes, belonging, and fair access to local opportunity.

What about staff?

If universities want to be credible agents of social mobility, we also need to look inward.

The socioeconomic makeup of the university workforce remains largely invisible. Few institutions collect data on the class background of their staff. The 2010 Equality Act doesn’t treat social class as a protected characteristic, so there’s no legal driver to act, and no institutional accountability.

This gap has been highlighted in HEPI’s recent work on equity in academic careers, which shows that the absence of robust data on social class in recruitment and promotion processes limits our ability to understand – and address – barriers to entry and progression in the sector.

But this blind spot matters. Academia as a career is often inaccessible to those without a financial safety net. Structural inequalities in postgraduate progression and insecure early-career contracts compound the problem. If our own workforce doesn’t reflect the diversity we champion in student access, what message does that send?

A civic role still waiting to be realised

We often describe universities as anchor institutions. But Leave to Achieve? finds that civic engagement is still too often a patchwork of well-meaning projects rather than a systemic strategy.

Too few universities are meaningfully embedded in local education and skills ecosystems. Too few are co-producing knowledge with communities. And too many are still seen – particularly in more deprived regions – as distant, elite, and not “for people like us.”

This is not just a moral imperative. It’s a political one. The Secretary of State’s 2024 letter was clear: universities must be more visible and valuable in their localities. Delivering on that expectation will require more than community outreach – it will require rethinking institutional purpose.

The Civic University Network and UPP Foundation’s Civic University Agreements have laid important groundwork here. But Leave to Achieve? argues for more consistent policy incentives and accountability mechanisms that can embed civic engagement as a core strategic function across the sector.

Rethinking research impact

Research and innovation are often positioned as universities’ contribution to economic growth. But what if we rethought them as tools for regional social mobility?

The report argues that embedding social equity in research priorities – not just in outputs, but in who defines the questions and who benefits – can help ensure that innovation serves local communities, not just national agendas.

That also means investing in more diverse academic pipelines, better knowledge exchange structures, and partnerships that extend beyond the usual suspects. The Research England-funded Participatory Research Fund is an example of how the research ecosystem can be better aligned with inclusive growth goals.

So what’s next?

The SMF’s recommendations are pragmatic and targeted: a national strategy for social mobility, delivered through regional structures. Legal recognition of social class in equality legislation. Better socioeconomic workforce data. And, crucially, incentives for local recruitment and regional collaboration.

In short, they point to a version of the future that aligns closely with the government’s own vision – if policymakers are willing to resource it. A recent HEPI blog from the Social Market Foundation’s Dani Payne poses some important questions for universities to consider.

This project wasn’t commissioned to critique, but to catalyse. It’s also about recognising what the sector already does well. From transformative widening participation work and contextual admissions schemes to place-based partnerships and pioneering civic strategies, many universities are already expanding opportunity within their regions and communities.

Collaboration is central to this mission. A renewed social mobility agenda must galvanise universities, colleges, employers, charities, and public sector partners to work together to address local and regional need – creating a coherent, joined-up ecosystem of opportunity that supports people to thrive in the places they call home.

The broader message is this: we need a whole-university approach to social mobility. That means moving beyond access targets to consider our roles as employers, civic actors, and knowledge producers. It means recognising that social mobility is about place as much as potential. And it means being honest about what we haven’t yet achieved.

Our goal now is to ensure this debate doesn’t get lost in the long grass, but to extend an arm to the sector and other key actors to develop a long-term shared mission for social mobility.

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June 25, 2025
Embracing Credit Mobility for Student Success
Let me tell you about Andrew, a motivated student who graduated high school early with impressive dual-enrollment credits. After attending a private college for a year and taking some time to work, he rekindled his educational ambitions at a community college. With approximately 30 credits remaining for his bachelor’s degree, he applied to an R-1 university, ready to complete his journey.

What should have been a seamless transition became an unexpected challenge. Despite submitting his transfer work in October and regularly checking in with his adviser, Andrew discovered in January—after classes had already begun—that he faced “at least three years of coursework” rather than the anticipated single year to graduation.

This isn’t a rare occurrence or some administrative anomaly. Rather, it is the norm for individuals who aren’t pursuing a four-year degree on the traditional timeline. Higher education talks endlessly about completion and student success while maintaining systems and policies that actively undermine these goals.

Andrew’s story represents a critical opportunity for higher education. While his family successfully advocated for a refund and found another institution that better recognized his prior learning, his experience highlights a fundamental challenge we must address collectively.

The Scale of the Challenge

We have 42 million Americans with some college credit but no degree. We have 200,000 military personnel transitioning to civilian life annually. We have an economy desperately needing upskilled workers. Yet higher education’s response to credit mobility remains anchored in outdated policies and processes that fail to serve today’s students, institutions or workforce needs.

Many institutions have made meaningful progress in supporting diverse student needs through childcare services, flexible scheduling and online options. These are important steps. Now we must extend this same commitment to the academic evaluation processes that directly impact students’ time to degree and financial investment.

The Disconnect

Transfer articulation agreements—where they have been struck—have created valuable pathways, but their implementation often lacks the consistency and transparency students deserve. When agreements include qualifying language without firm commitments, students can’t effectively plan their educational journeys or make informed financial decisions.

The contradiction is striking: We express concern about student debt and extended time to degree, questioning why students take 150 credits when they only need 120 to graduate. Meanwhile, our credit evaluation processes remain opaque, slow and often costly.

The current reality—where students frequently must apply, pay deposits or even enroll before understanding how their previous academic work will be valued—creates unnecessary barriers. We can do better—and, frankly, must. It’s like buying a car and finding out the price after you’ve signed the paperwork. In what other industry would this be acceptable?

The Opportunity

Consider the possibilities if we fully embraced credit mobility as a cornerstone of student success:
- Students could make informed decisions about their educational pathways before committing financially.
- Institutions could demonstrate their commitment to affordability by recognizing prior learning.
- Graduation rates would improve as students avoid unnecessary course repetition.
- The workforce would benefit from skilled professionals entering more quickly.
Addressing the Objections

The objections to credit mobility typically fall into three categories:
1. Faculty workload: Faculty are being asked to do more, and evaluating credits for prospective students can feel like an unnecessary burden. But what if more students could see that their learning had value, that their degree was within reach, that they didn’t have to retake classes they’ve already mastered? This shift in perspective could transform the evaluation process from a burden to an opportunity.
2. Lost revenue: The focus on enrollments often overshadows the reality that only 50 percent of students who start college actually finish within six years. What if our goal was to expand opportunities so more students could complete their degrees? What if students were taking classes that genuinely added to their experience and built their confidence rather than repeating content they’ve already learned?
3. Quality concerns: Quality is often cited as justification for delayed evaluation. In reality, transparent evaluation supports faculty’s desire to maintain academic standards. Clear processes allow for informed decisions and data collection that ensures the focus remains on student outcomes.
The AI Opportunity

The emergence of artificial intelligence presents a tremendous opportunity to enhance our credit-evaluation processes—addressing issues of time and cost while creating transparency for data analysis. A new study just released by AACRAO on the role of AI in credit mobility makes a compelling case as to why the technology could help unlock new ways of working. We can harness technology as a powerful tool to support faculty decision-making and administrative resource allocations. AI could:
- Identify potential course equivalencies based on learning outcomes.
- Highlight relevant information in transfer documentation.
- Streamline evaluation processes, allowing human experts to focus on complex cases.
- Provide leadership with insights into where credit mobility is operating effectively.
- Identify areas needing additional resources or training.
With proper implementation and training, AI can become a tool to achieve our goals of access and completion at scale—reducing both the cost and timeline to graduation.

The Path Forward

If we truly believe in access and completion, then credit mobility must become a shared priority across higher education. This means:
- Making course information, learning outcomes and sample syllabi readily accessible.
- Expanding recognition of diverse learning experiences, including microcredentials, corporate training, internships and apprenticeships.
- Establishing and honoring clear timelines for credit evaluation.
- Eliminating financial barriers to credit assessment.
- Providing updated articulation and equivalency tables in easy-to-find locations on admissions websites.
Andrew’s experience should be the exception, not the rule. Colleges and universities that embrace this challenge will not only better serve their students but will also position themselves for long-term sustainability in an increasingly competitive landscape. Those that resist change risk becoming irrelevant to the very students they aim to serve and perpetuating the cost and time-to-completion conundrum.

The Call to Action

The question before us isn’t whether credit mobility matters—it’s whether we have the collective will to make it a reality at scale, not just at a handful of institutions, but across systems and all institutions. We must recognize that our students are learning in new ways, on new timelines, and bringing knowledge that evolves faster than our curriculum. Our students deserve nothing less than our full commitment to recognizing their learning, regardless of where it occurred.

So I’ll ask: How committed are you to credit mobility at scale? Your answer says everything about how seriously you take college completion.

Jesse Boeding is the co-founder of Education Assessment System, an AI-powered platform mapping transfer, microcredentials and prior learning to an institution’s curriculum to enable decision-making and resourcing.
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June 18, 2025
Leave to Achieve?: A new framework for universities to drive local social mobility
- By Dani Payne, Senior Researcher and Education Lead at the Social Market Foundation.
University remains the most effective pathway for disadvantaged individuals to achieve upward social mobility. Graduates earn more, are less likely to be unemployed, and report higher levels of health, happiness and civic engagement. Yet, despite this individual impact, higher education’s benefits often fail to translate into positive outcomes for local communities.

Recent research from the Sutton Trust ranked constituencies by social mobility. Most interesting is the bottom 20. More than half have at least one university within their immediate locality, and some have as many as 18 in their wider region. Essentially, having a university – or, indeed, many universities – in your region doesn’t guarantee improved local social mobility.

The need for a new social mobility framework

The government’s ‘opportunity mission’ is built on the principle that every child, in every community, should have a fair chance to succeed.

But rising costs, frozen maintenance support, demographic shifts and widening attainment gaps threaten progress made on access. Moreover, targets tend to be institution-specific, creating duplications and silos, and encouraging competition between providers. Selective universities continue to meet access targets by disproportionately recruiting disadvantaged pupils from high-attaining London boroughs, leaving local disadvantaged learners behind – even when world-class institutions are right on their doorstep.

We must broaden how we assess universities’ social mobility impact. To be able to understand when, why and how the benefits of an institution do or don’t reach into local communities, we must also consider their roles as major employers, civic actors and research hubs.

In our new report, Leave to Achieve?, we set out a new framework for how universities can conceptualise and measure their local social mobility contribution. The framework consists of four key pillars, underpinned by the need for regional collaboration and long-term planning.

1. Educational opportunities for local people

Access to higher education varies starkly by region: 27% of disadvantaged pupils in London hold an undergraduate degree by age 22, compared to just 10% in the South West.

Universities must work with local schools and colleges to raise attainment and create alternative entry pathways. They should be considering the extent to which they nurture and recruit talent locally, supporting pupils to progress and succeed. A place-based approach to widening participation, developed collaboratively with other regional providers, ensures local talent is not just nurtured but retained.

Some existing initiatives show promise. Durham Inspired North East Scholarships, Middlesex’s guaranteed offer scheme for local applicants, and the Warwick Scholar’s program providing financial, academic and practical support to local disadvantaged pupils, all show how targeted programs can work at a local level. However, articulation agreements with local further education providers are underutilised in England, and inconsistent contextual admissions policies limit impact.

2. Good jobs for local people

Universities are often the largest, or among the largest, employers in the local region. This is often cited to give the impression that they are ‘too big to fail’, particularly in the current financial context. But little has been done to look at the extent to which universities are providing good jobs to local people, and whether these are open to people from different socioeconomic backgrounds.

Academic roles provide an opportunity for social mobility – for those who can secure one. For someone from a lower socioeconomic background to become a lecturer, for example, they have almost certainly experienced upwards occupational social mobility, if not also absolute (income) social mobility, too. Similarly, professional service roles are often well paid and secure, with a reasonable pension, and working within a university comes with a certain amount of cultural and social prestige, too.

A university performing strongly in this area would be spearheading initiatives to support local people from disadvantaged backgrounds into some of these roles and supporting staff from lower socioeconomic backgrounds whilst they are there. Southampton’s staff social mobility network stands out here, specifically recognising and seeking to tackle barriers in recruitment, retention and career progress for those from working-class backgrounds.

3. Using research to address local needs

Research within institutions should address local needs and tackle inequalities, with outputs shared with local communities. Local residents should have opportunities to be involved in research and should understand why research carried out in their region is valuable.

There are excellent examples in this area, such as UWE Bristol’s ‘Engagement with Education‘ programme and London Metropolitan’s participatory knowledge exchange projects. But these remain examples of best – not yet standard – practice.

4. Civic actors: Lead locally, collaborate regionally

As civic institutions, universities must be more deeply integrated within their localities. Despite growing attention to civic engagement, activity is often fragmented and lacking an overarching strategy. Participation in local skills planning is inconsistent, and incentives to foster collaboration across providers are weak.

Great Manchester’s Civic Agreement is a great example of universities coming together with local leaders to work towards shared goals, recognising that collaboration is far more effective than competition, duplication, or silos. The South West Social Mobility Commission takes this a step further, bringing together all education providers (not just higher education), businesses, local leaders and third-sector organisations to promote better social mobility in the region.

A call to action

This framework is not a checklist, but a tool for reflection. We do not expect every institution to be a star performer in every pillar, but we do see value in measuring impact more holistically, across the full range of university activity.

Universities should ask themselves:
- Are we reaching local disadvantaged students?
- Are we getting local people into good jobs, and are these jobs available to those from all social class backgrounds?
- Is our research making a tangible difference to local challenges?
- Are we truly embedded as civic leaders in our region?
Only by addressing these questions can we begin to understand how – and when – the presence of a university does improve social mobility in its immediate communities. And only then can we ensure that local people no longer feel that they must leave in order to achieve.
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June 13, 2025
That Was the Quarter That Was

What’s been going on around the world since the end of March, you ask?

Well, unsurprisingly, the biggest stories have come from the United States. There are in effect four fronts to the Trump administration’s attacks on the world of higher education. First of all, the government’s new budget is going to reduce student eligibility for student loans and grants, meaning there will be less opportunity available to American students. Second, the budget also proposes to radically slash the budgets of the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) (the cuts you heard about in the early months of the Trump administration were cuts to existing and in-progress grants – the new budget is about slashing expenditures going forward). Third, it had decided to get itself into an enormous spat with Harvard, starting with issuing a bizarre set of demands on April 11^th, followed by an admission that the letter had been sent in error, followed by enraged bellicosity that Harvard wasn’t submitting to a letter the administration had not meant to send. Things escalated: the Trump administration impounded more billions of dollars, Harvard responded by shrugging and raising a few hundred million on the bond market, and Trump escalated by, eventually, banning Harvard from accepting or hosting any international students. And fourth, shortly after a court granted Harvard an injunction on the international students matter, the Trump administration began delaying all student visas and aggressively cancelling Chinese student visas.

(Whew.)

This is of course a massive own goal with dangerous implications, as commentators such as Holden Thorp and William Kirby have pointed out. But it is not simply about Americans losing scientific/technological supremacy. As the Economist has pointed out, the entire world has a stake in what happens to American science; its hobbling will have consequences not just for global science but for the global economy as well.

It has been fascinating over the past few weeks watching how the American debacle had grabbed the attention of the rest of the world as well. It has been very difficult this past month or so to be somewhere where the papers weren’t obsessing about what was happening to students at Harvard (check out a representative smattering from Ethiopia, Iceland, Vietnam, Malaysia, India and Kazakhstan).   At the policy level, almost every OECD government is revving up plans to poach US-based researchers even in places which genuinely don’t have the scientific infrastructure to poach anyone (Ireland?  Czechia? C’mon). In other words, you have basically the entire world looking at how the American debacle in a massively self-centred way. Basically, it’s all: “Yeah, yeah, death of the American research university, how does this affect me/how can I profit?”

But the world has yet to grapple in any kind of serious way is how to maintain growth and innovation in a world where the largest spender on research is reducing expenditures by 50%. This has implications for absolutely everybody and at the moment there are no serious discussions about how the world gets by without it. Obviously, other countries can’t replace what used to come out of NSF and NIH. But they can, as Billy Beane from Moneyball might say, recreate it “in the aggregate” by working together. Unfortunately, that’s not quite what they are doing. That would require Australia, Canada, Japan and Korea to be working actively with the European Union; not only is that not happening, but these days the EU can’t even get it’s own act together on research.

Meanwhile, in large parts of the world, the main higher education story we hear about is one of “cutbacks”, “austerity” and the like. But there are, I think, some fundamentally different issues at work in different countries. In the rich Anglosphere, which happens to be where most of the big producers of higher education are located, mature higher education systems highly reliant on market fees are being forced into big cuts as governments remove their ability to attract funds, usually by changing their student visa regimes. (An aside here: many people ask: where will international students go if not Canada/US/Australia/wherever? To which the answer is usually: to a great extent, they will just stay home. But a few countries do seem to be doing better on international students as of late, mostly in Asia.  Turkey, Dubai and Uzbekistan in particular seem to be the big winners, though the growth in their intakes is lower than the drop in the intakes of the big anglophone countries).

But in other countries, the fundamental financial tension is that demand for higher education is far outstripping the ability of either public or private funding to keep the system afloat (government could choose not to meet so much demand, but political needs must).   Kenya, with its widespread university financial problems comes into this category, and Nigeria, where funding new universities seems to come at the expense of funding existing ones clearly come under this category. Intermediate cases here include France (increasing demand, flat funding), Brazil (which has done a series of policy U-turns on transfers to federal universities and whose overall policy might best be described as “confused”), and perhaps Colombia (promises of money co-existing with widespread institutional precarity, even in the public sector). What is common here is that a lot of countries seem to have built systems which are too big/expensive for what the public – collectively or individually – is willing to pay.

A common response to the problem of inadequate public funding is the expansion of private higher education. Almost unbelievably, private higher education now makes up about 20% of total provision in Spain, France and Germany (in two of those countries, tuition is free, and in the third it is minimal – under 1000 euros per year in most cases). In many cases, the expansion is in relatively cheap classroom-heavy courses (often in business) but in many cases these universities are moving into other areas such health care provision. This explosion has led to a significant tightening of regulations on private universities in Spain and a “tri” (meaning triage”) on France’s Parcoursup system, meaning that certain types of private college will have a harder time advertising themselves to prospective students. This phenomenon is not constrained to Europe: Tunisia is also currently pre-occupied with how to regulate private institutions. An alternative to letting domestic private universities rip is to invite foreign institutions into the country.  India is the country most in the news for attempting this at the moment but places like Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan and Vietnam are also eagerly heading down this route.

Tuition fees are always an issue, and at public universities we see evidence both for and against the idea that fees are rising. On the one hand, we have Namibia introducing free tuition (though – note – without fully announcing its operational details), and a Labor government in Australian winning on a promise to – in effect – shorten graduate repayment periods by cancelling debt. On the other hand, Korea and Russia – both countries with abysmal youth demographics – are allowing their institutions to raise fees after years of both falling enrolments and largely frozen tuition.  Finland may be introducing fees for certain forms of continuing education. But higher tuition isn’t the only way governments deal with crashing demographics; in Pennsylvania, the solution is outright campus closures.

In terms of student activism, the main story so far this year is Serbia, which is now in the seventh month of student-led anti-government protests. At this point, it’s very hard to see how the students obtain their maximalist demands of regiment change. After six months of protests, students are starting to go back to school and finish their academic year. Recent evidence from North America suggests the movement will have trouble maintaining itself over the summer months and into next year.

War continues to re-shape universities around the world. Ukraine has announced changes to its system of conscription which will lower its university attendance rate (particularly for graduate studies). Something similar has happened in Ethiopia, where new rules have been introduced requiring students to do a year of national service before graduation. Russian universities continue to atrophy in different ways, partly due to government policy but also due to the exodus of many scholars who have fled the regime.

Among other things from this quarter that bear watching going forward: Greece is continuing the modification of its university system at a furious pace both in terms of altering curricula and in terms of changing the post-dictatorship convention that campuses are police-free zones. Algeria is moving its entire university system from French to English instruction, which may not have a huge effect in higher education, but certainly tells you which way global linguistic politics are going. Hong Kong is experimenting with a new institutional type, and a billionaire in China is putting some serious coin behind a new university.

My tip for the story this summer? Watch graduate unemployment rates around the world, particularly in India and China (where the situation is so bad the government has just announced a kind of emergency blitz on graduate hiring which sure seems like it is set up for failure). I think the push to align higher education more with the labour market is about to go into overdrive.

All caught up now! See you back here in September.

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June 10, 2025
It’s the little moments that power social mobility

Anyone who has gone into higher education from a “non-traditional” background knows that widening participation is a double-edged sword. It is there to promote social mobility – but for individual students this journey, once taken, tends to be irreversible.

In return for out-earning your family of origin, you are likely to endure a long period of feeling like an outsider. Whether it’s your accent, the words you use, the house you lived in, what you eat, the school you went to, or where (and indeed, if) you go on holiday, there are thousands of ways that you can feel different – and lesser. For some students, this feeling of being an imposter is further compounded by differences in culture, religion and ethnicity. As time goes on you can either continue standing out like a sore thumb or you can start to assimilate and, in doing so, lose little pieces of yourself forever.

This is the story I heard many times over while carrying out research for a report published today. A Different World explores socioeconomic disadvantage in the transition to university and first year experience. In a partnership between Unite Students, University of Leeds and Manchester Metropolitan University, students took part in interviews, focus groups and co-creation, with most of them contributing directly to the report’s 33 recommendations.

If this many recommendations seems excessive (even though they are helpfully grouped into six themes) it’s because most of them are about small but meaningful actions. I’ve spent the best part of 25 years advocating for a more inclusive higher education sector, but it’s only since working in student accommodation that I’ve come to see the value of these day-to-day moments as a force for change.

University visits for schools are good, tutoring projects even better, and the return of grants would be lovely – but wherever the student experience is built on middle-class norms we will continue to see lower enrolment, continuation, completion, attainment and graduate outcomes among students from a different background.

The change that is needed – and attainable – involves small, local actions in addition to system-level change.

In their own words

A Different World enables students to tell their own stories in their own words, which brings a richness of nuance to the topic and reveals opportunities for change.

For example, there are many ways to cope with alienation, but opportunities to meet others from similar backgrounds really helps. As well as other students, this could also include staff members, and not just academic staff. Student accommodation maintenance teams made a difference for one student, and outside of this research I’ve heard many stories of students whose experience has been transformed by housekeepers or the reception team. Do we recognise and encourage this enough? Students were also reassured by services specifically aimed at them. We British don’t like to talk about social class, but maybe it would be helpful if we did.

Students also shared the challenges of working and balancing a budget, and financial matters certainly did limit opportunities for socialising and extra-curriculars. However, they talked at least as much about their budgeting skills and ability to find the best bargains, skills usually learned from family. They were so impressive in this respect that they would have been helpful peer coaches for students in financial difficulty.

A less obvious impact of socioeconomic background is gaps in fundamental knowledge about higher education. If you are the first person in your family to go to university, and especially if your school or college isn’t geared up to preparing you for it, there will be a lot you don’t know, including “unknown unknowns”, which put you at a disadvantage. For some students, unspoken assumptions tripped them up several times in the first year leading to missed opportunities and academic disadvantage.

A different world

The good news is that there’s a lot that can be done that would benefit students from disadvantaged backgrounds, and much of it would benefit a wider range of students too. You are probably doing some of these already, or in pockets within the organisation.

All academics, and especially personal tutors, could explain expectations, terms and how to interact with them. For example, what are “office hours”, how do students get a meeting with you, and what are they allowed to talk about in those meetings? Module leaders could include ice-breakers at the start of every module, which also helps to promote belonging. Campus services staff could be encouraged and trained to develop more meaningful relationships with students, within appropriate boundaries. You could employ more students, especially those on a low income, and encourage your partners and suppliers to do the same. You could work with student-led societies to develop more inclusive practices and clearer communication. Maybe offer targeted bursaries for extra-curricular activities, via a clear and efficient process. For further inspiration I’d recommend reading the case studies from Manchester Metropolitan University and the University of Leeds that are included in the report.

Widening access has been a success story over the last three decades – but if we’re serious about delivering social mobility as a sector, and as a society, individual students will benefit from better awareness and support while they are undertaking that difficult journey.

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June 10, 2025
Mobility Isn’t a Choice: How Higher Education Can Better Serve Military Learners

This post is excerpted from a forthcoming book on learner mobility to be published in July 2025 by the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers.

Every few years, they pack up their lives, move across states—or oceans—and start over. New schools, new systems, new expectations.

For military learners, this isn’t a study abroad adventure or a career move; it’s a way of life. Yet while their reality is defined by mobility, too many of our systems in higher education still assume stability.

Military learners make up about five percent of the undergraduate population—roughly 820,000 students nationwide. But they aren’t a monolith. They’re active-duty service members juggling college coursework with operational demands like exercises, surprise inspections, and even deployments. They’re veterans navigating civilian life, often in isolation, and often while supporting a family. They’re National Guard and reserve members wearing multiple hats that opposing forces demand they change on command. And they’re spouses and dependents navigating new colleges, mid-degree or mid-semester, again and again, with each relocation.

Their stories are different, but the friction points are the same: staying on track academically while managing a life defined by mobility.

Unlike traditional students, military learners don’t choose when or where they go—on orders, deployments, or other permanent or temporary service-related relocations. And each move can derail progress. Credits don’t transfer, residency rules reset, tuition costs spike, and financial aid doesn’t always follow the same logic. These students bring resilience, discipline, and lived experience into our classrooms, but higher education hasn’t fully adjusted to meet them where they are.

The transfer tangle and financial aid maze

One of the biggest hurdles is transfer credit. While articulation agreements—formal arrangements for transferring credits between institutions—do exist, they often don’t reflect the realities of military learners, especially when it comes to military training or nontraditional learning experiences. Some accumulate credits from multiple institutions, only to be told their new school won’t accept them.

The result? Lost time, lost money, and unnecessary frustration.

Add to that the patchwork of residency rules. Even when learners are stationed in a state under military orders, they may not qualify for in-state tuition. While states like Virginia and Florida have implemented inclusive policies, others continue to lag, turning mobility into a penalty as well as a reality.

Financial aid adds another layer of complexity. Programs like tuition assistance and the GI Bill are essential, but they often fall short. Tuition assistance differs by branch and may not cover full tuition at private or out-of-state schools. The Post-9/11 GI Bill is a powerful benefit, but its eligibility rules and transfer limitations don’t always align with the unpredictable, stop-and-go nature of military life.

What states and institutions are doing right

There are promising models to build on. In Ohio, Military Transfer Assurance Guides standardize how public institutions accept military training as credit. Texas and New York offer additional tuition support for veterans, while Florida helps cover housing and textbook costs when GI Bill payments lapse between terms.

At the institutional level, schools like Grand Valley State University, Syracuse University, and the City University of New York (CUNY) are raising the bar. Their “Veteran Promise” programs guarantee admission, recognize military training, and offer wraparound support tailored to military-connected students.

That’s not charity—that’s what equity looks like. When institutions commit, military learners succeed.

The power and promise of credit for prior learning

Credit for prior learning (CPL) may be one of the most powerful—and underused—tools to support military learners, who bring extensive work and life experience to their postsecondary studies that can be translated into credit.

CPL recognizes that learning happens outside the classroom: through military training, job experience, CLEP exams, or portfolio assessments. When applied effectively, it can shorten the path to graduation, reduce student debt, and boost confidence for learners who’ve already mastered real-world skills.

Tools like ACE’s Military Guide help institutions apply CPL consistently and responsibly. But here’s the problem: CPL isn’t consistently communicated, awarded, or valued. In some cases, it’s limited to elective credits rather than core degree requirements, undermining its purpose.

CPL isn’t just about transfer and awarding credit; it’s also about unlocking opportunity. Validated learning can, and should, play a role in admissions, satisfying prerequisites, waiving introductory or duplicative coursework, and advising military learners on the path that is best for them. When institutions fully embrace the broader utility of CPL, they open more doors for military learners to engage meaningfully with higher education from the very start of their journeys.

To change that, institutions need more than buy-in—they need system-wide strategies. CPL should be central to transfer reform conversations, especially when supporting learners who are older, more experienced, and balancing school with work or caregiving.

The role of advising and ecosystem support

Too often, military learners don’t get the tailored advice they need. On-base education centers can be vital entry points, but they need stronger bridges to campus advising teams who understand military culture, CPL, and transfer systems. Institutions sometimes resist broader CPL use over concerns about revenue loss or academic rigor, while students are left unaware of opportunities due to poor communication or advising gaps. Aligning on-base education centers with well-trained campus advisors is one step forward; improving internal communication across departments is another.

Student Veterans of America’s Success Hub, which includes the SVA Advising Center, supports all service members, veterans, and their families in making informed decisions about higher education opportunities and meaningful careers through the use of AI, success coaches, and expertise where the military, veterans, and higher education intersect.

Organizations like NACADA are doing the work to improve professional development in this area, but we need deeper, sustained collaboration. Cross-sector partnerships between colleges, employers, and the U.S. Department of Defense are where real impact happens.

Programs like Syracuse’s Onward to Opportunity and ACE’s Reimagining Transfer for Student Success illustrate what’s possible when higher education and workforce systems align.

The BLUF, or Bottom Line Up Front

Military learners aren’t asking for special treatment. They ask for systems to make sense for the lives they actually lead. With the right policy changes, institutional commitments, and collaborative frameworks, we can turn mobility from a barrier into a bridge.

But we also need better data, better pathways, and a better understanding of what success looks like for these students—not just access, but degree completion and career readiness. Military learners aren’t an exception. They are the future of an inclusive, prepared, and resilient workforce.

It’s time higher education met these students where they are because they’re already leading the way.

If you have any questions or comments about this blog post, please contact us.

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May 27, 2025
How cost of living is influencing UK student mobility

Drive along any motorway in September and you will see car after car full of duvets, pots and pans, and clothes as students head off to pastures new. I remember my own experience, crossing the Severn Bridge with the bedding on the front seat of my Fiesta muffling Oasis’ Definitely Maybe.

This stereotypical view of a literal journey into higher education isn’t the case for everyone, however. In fact, far more students live at home during their studies than you may think.

The UCAS application asks students about whether they intend to live at home. In 2024, 30 per cent of UK 18-year-olds said they planned to live at home during their studies – up from 25 per cent in 2019 and just 21 per cent in 2015.

However, when we look beyond the headline numbers, over half of the most disadvantaged students (IMD Q1) live at home during their studies, compared to fewer than one in five of the least disadvantaged (IMD Q5). Regional distribution will have an impact here, particularly London.

Scottish students are more likely to live at home during their studies. On a recent visit to Edinburgh, all the students I met spoke with excitement about their plans to study at their chosen university within the city. By contrast, Welsh domiciled students are the least likely to live at home during their studies.

In London, 52 per cent of 18-year-olds progress to HE – with around half of those students staying in London, making it unsurprising that the capital sees the highest proportion of live at home students in England.

Cost of living pressures

Cost of living is undoubtedly influencing student choice. At the January equal consideration deadline, UCAS saw a 2.1 per cent increase in the number of UK 18-year-old applicants – a record high. However, regular readers of Wonkhe will know this also represents a decline in the application rate – the proportion of the 18-year-old population applying to HE, and UCAS insight increasingly points to the cost of living playing a role.

Our latest survey insight suggests that 43 per cent of pre-applicants feel they are less likely to progress to HE due to cost-of-living pressures, up from 24 per cent in 2023 – although their commitment to going to university remains high.

Financial support is also of growing importance to students when it comes to deciding where to study. While finding the perfect course content was the most important factor when shortlisting universities (49 per cent), the financial support available while studying (such as a scholarship or bursary) was a close second (46 per cent). Specific cost-of-living support offered by universities was third (34 per cent).

The availability of support with the cost of living has risen in relative importance as a factor when shortlisting universities from 12th in 2022 to 3rd in 2024 – a significant shift, which suggests a change in student mindset. There have also been large changes in rank importance of “universities that are close to home” from 9th to 4th, “universities with low-cost accommodation” from 13th to 7th and “universities I can attend but still live with my parents” from 16th to 11th.

Source: Potential applicants for 2025 entry, 1,023 UK respondents, Dec 2024–Jan 2025

It isn’t just at the point of application where we see the cost of living impacting choice. In 2024, UCAS saw 43,000 students decline the place they were holding in favour of an alternative institution or subject – making this the largest group of students using Clearing.

This is not a spur of the moment decision, with 52 per cent having already decided to do this prior to receiving their results and a further one in five considering it based on their results.

When asked what drove their decision, 23 per cent told us they had a change in personal circumstances and 17 per cent wanted to live somewhere cheaper. We also know this impacts on all cohorts of students – 19 per cent of international students that don’t accept a university offer through UCAS tell us they have found a more attractive financial offer elsewhere.

However, the primary reason that students use Decline My Place is linked to the course, with 31 per cent changing their mind about the subject they wish to study.

Support measures

It’s clear that cost of living and financial support is a key factor influencing student choice and so we must ensure this information is easily accessible and understood by students.

Students tell us they’d like more practical information about student discounts, financial support packages or bursaries/scholarships. UCAS will shortly be launching a scholarships and bursary tool to promote these opportunities to students.

Around half of offer holders in 2024 recalled receiving information about cost of living support. This presents a timely opportunity for any university staff working in marketing, recruitment or admissions to ensure information about financial support is easy to find on their website, along with information about timetabling to help students understand how they may be able to balance work and study commitments.

There will be certain groups of students that are even more acutely impacted by cost of living challenges. Last cycle saw a record number of students in receipt of Free School Meals – 19.9 per cent – enter HE. Whilst it is only a small part of the puzzle, UCAS has removed the application fee for these students.

Cost of living pressures are likely to persist, with students continuing to assess the value of HE in this context. The sector should continue to highlight the benefits of university study as a vehicle for social mobility, along with the graduate premium – the higher earnings they typically earn compared to non-graduate peers. But we also need to make it clearer how HE of all forms remains accessible – from funds for travel to open days, to in study commuter breakfasts, hardship funds, cost of living support, and high-quality careers guidance to support graduate employability.

This article is published in association with UCAS. It forms part of our ongoing series on commuter students – you can read the whole series here.

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May 20, 2025
EU negotiators “optimistic” about EU-UK mobility scheme

“The geopolitical landscape has changed dramatically and it’s an additional reason why the United Kingdom and the European Union have to work together,” Germany’s ambassador to the UK, Miguel Berger told The Today Program on April 25.

Berber added that he was “really optimistic” about the deal, ahead of a summit of EU and UK leaders on May 19, where the main discussion will focus on Europe’s security and defence.

“This is about security in Europe. It requires cooperation between democracies, friends, allies, countries with the same values. So, the geopolitical circumstances have changed in a way that there is no other option than close cooperation,” said Berber.

The ambassador said the scheme being negotiated would be based on a “one in, one out” basis, with a limit on the total number of Europeans living in the UK and the number of British people going to Europe.

However, a UK government spokesperson told The PIE that it had “no plans” for a youth mobility agreement, a stance that it has repeatedly maintained amid heightened political sensitivity around migration.

The most recent suggestions that a mobility scheme could be introduced come as Keir Starmer’s government is set to publish its new Immigration White Paper in the coming weeks, which is expected to reduce legal migration.

Berber highlighted the evolving geopolitical landscape, one in which the UK is increasingly being asked to rethink its relationship with the US and the EU.

According to English UK, the plan is not a return to freedom of movement but a time-limited scheme lasting up to three years, something a recent survey showed the majority of UK voters were in favour of.

In particular, the poll found 81% of Labour voters support a two-year youth mobility scheme, including two thirds on Conservative-Labour switchers, and 74% support a four-year scheme, including half Labour-Conservative switchers.

“It is a key demand of the EU in up-coming reset talks with the UK government and we are very encouraged to see the mood shifting among senior government ministers in recent days,” an English UK spokesperson told The PIE.

“A [youth mobility scheme] agreement with the EU would benefit British youth, inbound tourism and UK exports,” they said, adding that it would play an integral part of UK soft power networks.

The geopolitical landscape has changed dramatically and it’s an additional reason why the United Kingdom and the European Union have to work together

Miguel Berber, Germany’s Ambassador to the UK

This April, more than 60 Labour MPs signed a letter calling on the Prime Minister to back time-limited visas for 18-to-30-year-olds from the EU and UK, which is seen as a key European demand in opening up more ambitious trade with Brussels.

According to The Times, government sources insisted that home secretary Yvette Cooper was open to a capped mobility scheme with the EU, though it is understood that no formal proposals have been put to the home secretary.

“The news that that the government seems to be seriously considering a youth mobility scheme with the EU has been a long time coming,” said Sir Nick Harvey, CEO of the European Movement UK.

Harvey added that the government’s former hostility to the idea “could not be justified when the benefits of such a scheme are so obvious,” including giving young people the chance to work and study in Europe.

According to Berber, the scheme would “reduce obstacles and make is possible for young people with parents on a lower income to have the possibility to work abroad and to learn a language. We would like to have this in both directions,” he said.

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April 25, 2025
Weaponizing International Education and Student Mobility – Global Career Compass