White Working Class Males in British Higher Education
My parents , my family [ were not encouraging ]. I had a sister who went to university and didn ’ t really use the degree she had . … I think that ’ s one of the main reasons my family were quite -- [ pause ] They ’ re not against it now but they were against the whole idea of it , because of the amount of money you spend doing it and all that .
I ’ m a really indecisive person and my dad ’ s the same , so when I initially didn ’ t want to go to uni he was like , ‘ No , you should go ’ and then when I got in he was like , ‘ Are you sure you wanna go ?’ and then when I got here , he was like , ‘ You should maybe think about dropping out if you don ’ t like it .’
“ Throughout my entire life I ’ ve been told ‘ Don ’ t get a degree , don ’ t go get a degree . It ’ s a lot of debt . You don ’ t need that debt . Don ’ t get a degree ’.”
--focus group participant
While many of the focus group participants discussed the concerns they had about going to university , they all made the choice and took the risk to apply and enrol , committing three years of their life and taking on student debt to earn their degree and pursue their career goals . It is important to note that the data for this research is collected from higher education participants , whose views of the benefits of higher education are likely to be different from non-participants because they have chosen to invest their time and future earnings into the university system . They have already decided that the benefits of higher education outweigh the risks . Other researchers have explored nonparticipants ’ views of higher education ( Archer and Hutchings , 2000 ; Archer and Hutchings , 2000 ), which are worth reading in order to better understand those who have decided that the risks are too significant to bear . In the next subsection , the findings related to how the survey and focus group participants chose to pursue a university degree are explored .
6.2 Deciding to go to university
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In a recent UCAS report ( UCAS , 2016 ) titled Through the Lens of Students , findings related to the age at which young people become certain about their decision to pursue university are explored . The data shows that the younger a student decides that higher education will be part of their future , the more likely they are to actually apply to university ( UCAS , 2016 ).
There is evidence that the earlier a learner engages , at least with the concept of progression to HE , the more likely they are to go on and apply to HE . When applicants were asked at what age they felt sure they would apply to university , 43 per cent said between the ages of 16 and 19 , with disadvantaged applicants 19 per cent more likely to select this option . … Almost half of the disadvantaged group were aged 16 or older before they felt sure they would apply to university ( UCAS , 2016 ).
The report explored gender differences in the ages at which students become confident that they will apply to university , with nearly half of Male students indicating that they became certain about their higher education plans between the ages of 16-19 . The figure below is from the report and shows that young people from POLAR3 , Quintile 1 neighbourhoods , the most disadvantaged postcodes in which rates of higher education are the lowest , were more likely to indicate that they became sure they would apply to university when they were 16-19 years old ( UCAS , 2016 , p . 23 ). In contrast , one in four young people from the most advantaged neighbourhoods ( POLAR3 , Quintile 5 ) became certain that higher education would be part of their future by or before the age of 10 .