Today the Sutton Trust published a study which focuses on student mobility, which is a significant factor of inequality within higher education. The report ‘Home and Away: Social, ethnic and spatial inequalities in student mobility’ concludes by recommending improved financial support for disadvantaged students to provide them with the opportunity to move away from home and to offer lower fees for the least affluent.
Headline data reveals:
- 8% of people stay local for university.
- Disadvantaged students are less likely to leave home and travel further.
- Students from the lowest social class group are over three times more likely to commute from home than those from the highest group (44.9% compared with 13.1%).
- State school students are 2.6 times more likely to stay at home for study than their privately-educated counterparts.
- The increase in tuition fees to £9,000 in 2012 has affected mobility among those from certain ethnic backgrounds – British Pakistani and British Bangladeshi students, in particular – making them more likely to stay at home.
- The fee rise has not significantly affected overall trends in mobility (The WONKHE Daily).