White Working Class Males in British HE 2016 - 2017 | Page 32

White Working Class Males in British Higher Education

Part-time course 6 14 % 8 21 % 36 23 % Distance learning 4 9 % 2 5 % 17 11 %

Sandwich course 9 21 % 3 8 % 25 16 % Going after a gap year 8 19 % 5 13 % 25 16 % Going later on in life 3 7 % 2 5 % 11 7 % Total 43 100 % 39 100 % 157 100 %

Figure 29 : Percentage of survey respondents interested in different types of HE provision by POLAR3 quintile

5.4 Perceptions of university

In order to gather perceptions of HE , survey respondents were asked about their agreement with a number of statements about university as an option ( Figure 30 ). Respondents overall showed high levels of agreement with three statements in particular – ‘ My family thinks university is a good option for me ’/’ There are plenty of places to get advice about university ’/’ The courses and subjects available at university are suitable for me ’. Perhaps not surprisingly the statement that had the lowest levels of agreement was ‘ University is affordable ’.

There was a good deal of similarity between respondents from different POLAR3 areas although respondents in low participation neighbourhoods were less likely than those from high participation areas to say that they would enjoy being a university student and that university is necessary for the career they have in mind . They were also slightly less likely to say they ’ d get a job as a result . The biggest difference was in the share who agreed that university is affordable which was much lower amongst low participation neighbourhood respondents . Interestingly , this group were more likely to say university is open to everyone , and that they ’ d be accepted if they applied . However , it is important to note that the differences may be related to where respondents are currently studying as findings from the focus group suggest FE learners and 6 th Form students differ in their views towards the accessibility of HE .

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