Young people from deprived families in inner London are going to university at a greater rate than children in other parts of England, even as enthusiasm for higher education has levelled off nationally.
More than 50% of inner London’s pupils on free school meals (FSM) had progressed to higher education by age 19 in 2023-24, compared with fewer than 46% of young people from all backgrounds, and below 20% for pupils on FSM living in a quarter of local authorities outside London.
One in 10 of the inner London pupils gained places at selective universities such as those in the Russell Group, double the rate for young people on FSM from elsewhere in England.
Prof Graeme Atherton, an associate pro-vice-chancellor at the University of West London and an expert in access to higher education, said the extraordinary success of the inner London pupils was due to a combination of factors.
“GCSE attainment rates have been higher in London, and have been for a long time, so that drives participation,” Atherton said. “There’s a greater proclivity, that you can see in some of the data, for those from non-white backgrounds to enter higher education whatever grades they get – and the majority of young people in inner London are non-white. And there’s the proximity of higher education institutions, there’s lots of them in inner London … There’s more universities on your doorstep there.
“Put that all together and you’ve got a combination that leads to higher participation, and that’s across the board. But what’s also interesting is the difference between inner and outer London, where the participation rate isn’t so high. So maybe it’s also something about the critical mass of young people from similar backgrounds.”
Sarah Hannafin, head of policy at the National Association of Head Teachers, said: “Children’s educational attainment and life chances should not be constrained by their family’s means or where they live.”
The detailed statistics from the Department for Education tracked pupils eligible for FSM at age 15 or younger to age 19, and showed that the “participation gap” between young people from deprived backgrounds and their better-off peers had shrunk, boosted by the performance of those from London.
In particular, the gap narrowed between FSM eligible pupils and others attending “high tariff” universities requiring top A-level grades. But the national figures showed waning enrolments in 2023-24, which Atherton described as “stagnant” nationally, after record levels of enrolments during the Covid pandemic.
He said: “We’re seeing more evidence of student poverty. These young people, aged 17 or 18, they have friends, they have social media, they know what the student experience is like, and that could be off-putting. But overall there’s still solid demand, with regional differences.”
Among students who took A-levels at age 17, 80.6% had gone on to university or other higher education by age 19, a drop of more than two percentage points compared with 2022-23. Among all state school pupils at age 15, the progression rate by age 19 decreased from 46.9% to 45.8% in 2023-24.
The biggest exception was among black pupils, where progression to university rose to 63.3% – the biggest increase among any ethnic group since 2009, and the only group to have increased year on year. White pupils were the least likely to progress to higher education by age 19, at 40.5%.
