From Access to Engagement¹

It is possible to discern concern even as far back as the early twentieth century about some of the patterns of participation in English higher education (HE). This said, it is only since publication of the Robbins report in the early 1960s that policies and practices to increase and widen access to HE, and latterly to improve also the quality of that participation and student success rates, have become a regular and routine feature of the educational landscape in England.

However, in 2008, in the context of nearly half a century of interventions to increase (and later widen) access to HE – though focused on the especially strong policy ‘push’ since the turn of the new century – the National Audit Office (NAO) painted a patchy picture of progress: