Associations between characteristics of students

These pages display the updated, experimental access and full and part-time continuation measures.

ABCS (Associations between characteristics of students) identifies groups of students by how likely they are to access or continue in higher education based on a set of student characteristics (for example, their ethnicity, sex or background).

The sets of student characteristics we consider should not have an impact on student behaviour, but the evidence shows that they do.

Access to higher education

Explore the characteristics which affect the chances of young people going into higher education.

Continuing in full-time higher education

Explore the characteristics which affect the chances of full-time students continuing their studies.

Continuing in part-time higher education

Explore the characteristics which affect the chances of part-time students continuing their studies.

What do these pages show?

The pages use a new set of measures, which we call 'Associations between characteristics of students' (ABCS).
The measures take the form of access and continuation quintiles:
- Access quintile 1= the least likely to enter higher education
- Access quintile 5= the most likely to enter higher education
- Full-time (FT) and part-time (PT) continuation quintiles 1= the least likely to continue in higher education
- FT and PT continuation quintile 5= the most likely to continue in higher education.
By 'continue' we mean full-time students who continue into their second year of study and part-time students who continue into their third year of study, or students who qualify before that time.
Users can select either a single characteristic (for example, ethnicity) or multiple characteristics (ethnicity and sex) to see how this affects which quintile student groups will appear in.
The methodology for creating these measures has changed slightly since their first release in 2019 – details of these changes can be found in our update to ABCS report.

Read our update to the ABCS report (November 2020) Read our first report on these measures (September 2019)

Give feedback

ABCS is an experimental measure and we are actively seeking feedback.

If you have any comments, thoughts or suggestions, or if you require any further information or details, please contact Annalise Ruck at [email protected].

Last updated 26 November 2020 + show all updates

26 November 2020: Page revised to reflect overall updates to the analysis.

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Associations between characteristics of students

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