Risk 5: Limited choice of course type and delivery mode
Students may not have equal opportunity to access a sufficiently wide variety of higher education course types.
Explanation
Regional differences in the availability of types of higher education courses (such as undergraduate, degree apprenticeship, HNC) and the mode of course delivery (such as part-time, distance or hybrid) that are offered may result in some groups of students not being able to attend a course of their choice.
Experiencing this risk is likely to impact a student at the access, on-course and at the progression stages of their education.
- Differences in the availability of course type and delivery may result in more restricted choice for students with certain characteristics, and subsequently to lower progression to higher education rates.
- This may subsequently impact on regional disparities in course choice, qualifications, and the labour market.
- On course, it may also contribute to lower continuation rates and lower course attainment for these students, if they are not studying on a course type and/or delivery style that is suited to their situation.
Students who are:
- prisoners
- parents
- care experienced
- LGBT
- commuter students
- young carers
- Asian
- mature
- from a low household income
- disabled.
Note that the ordering does not denote a scale or ranking system.
Intersectionality:
It is important to consider how different student characteristics might interact with each other, and with school and areas-based characteristics. Providers may also wish to consider whether the mode of study heightens a risk.
For example, for each of the student characteristics noted above, students who live in rural areas are more likely to experience this risk than students who have the same personal characteristic, but who live in an urban area.
It is therefore recommended that providers consider intersectionality closely when looking at their own data.
For different groups of students, the impact of these risks that are visible in data might be:
- low application rates
- homogeneity in course type and/or delivery option within a provider
- low on-course attainment rates (which may differ for students on different course-delivery modes)
- low continuation rates (which may differ for students on different course-delivery modes).
Although this is a national risk, the extent to which it is seen at each provider may depend on factors such as:
- location
- entrance tariff
- whether the provider recruits nationally or locally and the range of course types/delivery mode available.
We therefore encourage providers to examine their own data and establish if this risk to equality of opportunity affects their current or potential student population.
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