The cost of higher education is seen as having a poor payoff in areas with few graduate jobs, and universities, colleges and schools are not doing enough to persuade young people from cold spots to invest now for higher earnings later.
Today [Thursday 22 May] the UPP Foundation publishes ‘Cold spots and calculated risks’, an investigation into the nature of cold spots for widening participation in higher education.
This report follows the inquiry’s introductory paper, in which the geographical challenge of widening participation was made clear. There are huge discrepancies in the rate of progression to higher education at 18 in different areas of the country, with 69.5% of 18-year-olds in Wimbledon entering higher education compared to just 35.6% in Doncaster (2023 figures). Higher education ‘cold spots’ like these place young people with university aspirations at a significant disadvantage, and they have proved resistant to policy interventions.
To explore the factors contributing to persistent cold spots for widening participation, the UPP Foundation sent researchers to Doncaster to conduct an in-depth qualitative investigation. Across a two-day immersive study, two focus groups, and three in-depth interviews, researchers found the following:
- University seems like a ‘bad bet’ to those in cold spots for two reasons: first the day-to-day cost and accrued debt of university seems unjustifiable, and second, the ‘payoff’ of a university degree seems minimal for those who wish to remain local.
- Cold spots may remain cold because of a lack of graduate job opportunities: There was a strong sense that Doncaster continues to identify as a blue-collar place, and that graduate jobs are a feature of life in other parts of the country rather than in Doncaster.
- Community and family ties, rather than economic opportunities, drive the behaviour of young people in cold spots: Many participants expressed feeling reassured and supported by proximity to family, and an unwillingness to venture far from Doncaster.
- Educational institutions in cold spots struggle to equip young people to make informed, confident decisions about the next steps in their educational journeys: Young people were especially likely to express disappointment at how schools, colleges and universities frame available post-18 pathways.
- This creates an intergenerational cycle of families preferring the certainty of high-visibility, low-ceiling opportunities in the local area to the perceived risks that higher education entails. Breaking this cycle will require input from across the school, college, and university sectors, as well as long-term job market realignment.
The twelfth-worst performing local authority in England for progression to higher education at 18, Doncaster is also a potential bellwether in Labour’s ongoing efforts to make good on the promises of its Opportunity Mission amid shifting political trends (the recent local elections saw Reform UK claim control of the local council alongside the re-elected Labour Mayor).
The findings from this paper have the potential to shape how policymakers tackle cold spots going forward. Recommendations for strategies to address these cold spots will feature in the inquiry’s concluding paper in July.
Richard Brabner, Executive Chair of the UPP Foundation, said: “In cold spots like Doncaster, young people with university aspirations risk getting left behind. The government has made it clear that it wants to provide opportunities to communities as a whole, not just isolated individuals – our work in Doncaster sets out the challenges involved in doing so.”
