Supporting disadvantaged students in higher education requires more than encouraging applications or improving admissions processes. In a session from the Supporting Disadvantaged Students in Higher Education Conference, Jon Datta, Head of University Access and Digital at the Sutton Trust, argued that regional inequality is built across a young person’s whole pathway: from school attainment and subject choice to local transport, advice, university provision and graduate employment opportunities.
The session, now available to watch on demand through the Supporting Disadvantaged Students in Higher Education Conference, offers a clear challenge to universities, policymakers and widening participation teams: if we want to improve access to selective universities, we need to understand how place shapes opportunity long before a student submits a UCAS application.
“Access to selective universities is not only about the admissions process. They matter, but by the time a student applies, much of the inequality is already accumulated. Things like school attainment, subject choice, confidence, predicted grades, knowledge of options, super curricular preparation, family networks, travel, and finance. So I would frame selective university access as a pathway issue. The selection point is only the visible end at the end of a much longer inequality chain.” – Jon Datta
Regional Disparities and Access to Selective Universities
Datta’s central message was that access to selective universities is not simply an outreach problem. Outreach remains important, and he acknowledged the strong work taking place across the UK to support young people from lower-income backgrounds. But, as he explained, place affects opportunity through a wider set of factors: attainment, advice, local provision, transport, finance, subject availability, employer networks and the local labour market.
This means regional disparities are not created at the point of application alone. By the time a student is deciding whether to apply to a selective institution, many barriers may already have accumulated. Grades, predicted grades, confidence, knowledge of options, family networks and access to super-curricular preparation can all shape whether a student sees a selective university as realistic.
Supporting Disadvantaged Students in Higher Education Means Looking at the Whole Pathway
One of the strongest themes from the session was the need to stop treating higher education access as a single moment. Datta described selective university access as the “visible end” of a much longer chain of inequality. If policy only intervenes at the final application stage, it risks arriving too late.
He framed the pathway through four broad areas:
1. Attainment
If pupils in some areas are less likely to achieve the grades required for selective universities, the access gap is partly set before admissions even begins. School outcomes, local support and earlier educational opportunities all matter.
2. Advice
Some students have access to schools, families, peers and local organisations that understand selective university routes. Others may not have the same guidance, making it harder to navigate choices around subjects, applications and preparation.
3. Provision
Geography affects what is physically accessible. Some young people live close to universities, colleges, employers and cultural institutions. Others face limited local provision, fewer subject choices and significant travel barriers.
4. Progression
Families and students also make decisions based on whether higher education appears to lead somewhere credible. If graduate jobs or professional networks are less visible locally, the perceived risk of going to university can feel higher.
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What the Data Reveals About Opportunity Gaps
Datta highlighted Department for Education widening participation data showing that, nationally, 28.9% of pupils eligible for free school meals progressed to higher education by age 19 in 2023/24. But this national figure hides major regional differences. In London, 48.3% of free school meal learners progressed to higher education. In the North East, the figure was 22.1%, and in the South West it was 19.3%.
The pattern becomes even more striking for high-tariff higher education. In London, around 10.2% of pupils eligible for free school meals at age 15 progressed to high-tariff higher education by age 19. In the East Midlands, the figure was 3%.
However, Datta was careful to stress that this is not a simple “north versus south” story. Low participation exists in every region, including urban, coastal and rural areas, and even within regions that appear prosperous overall. Broad regional averages can hide very different local realities.
The Sutton Trust’s Opportunity Index: Why Local Context Matters
Datta also drew on the Sutton Trust’s Opportunity Index, which ranks constituencies in England across six indicators for young people eligible for free school meals. These indicators cover the pathway from school into adulthood, including attainment, A level results, sustained education or employment after Key Stage 4, degree completion, sustained employment and earnings.
The findings show that opportunity is highly uneven. All of the top 20 constituencies for opportunity are in London, while only eight of the top 50 are outside the capital. Yet Datta warned against reading this as “London good, everywhere else bad.” Instead, the point is that opportunity clusters in specific places, while barriers also cluster elsewhere.
One of the clearest examples was the comparison between Stratford and Bow and Sevenoaks. Stratford and Bow has much higher levels of free school meal eligibility and child poverty, yet ranks 2nd in the Opportunity Index while Sevenoaks ranks 540th. The point is not that poverty no longer matters but that local opportunity structures can produce very different outcomes for disadvantaged pupils.
East London provides an important example. Areas such as East Ham, Stratford and Bow, Bethnal Green and Stepney, and Hackney South and Shoreditch perform strongly in the index, despite high levels of disadvantage. Datta suggested this reflects a dense ecosystem of schools, universities, transport links, peer norms, employers and civic institutions.
By contrast, some areas face multiple overlapping barriers: weaker attainment, fewer nearby selective pathways, less dense graduate labour markets and fewer visible professional networks. Datta argued that describing this as “low aspiration” misdiagnoses the problem. The issue is not ambition; it is whether young people can see, reach and afford credible routes.
Rural, Coastal and Subject Cold Spots
The session also explored how rural and coastal disadvantage can be overlooked. These areas may sit within wider regions that appear comfortable on average, but individual students can face higher transport costs, smaller school cohorts, fewer local networks and patchier outreach.
Datta also raised the issue of subject cold spots. It is not enough for students to have a university nearby; they also need access to subjects that match their interests, future pathways and local economies. If provision contracts, students without the money or flexibility to move may lose access to certain routes first.
Moving Beyond Outreach-Only Models
A major takeaway from the session was that outreach works, but it cannot carry the whole burden. Datta pointed to evidence from regional widening access initiatives and Uni Connect activity including evidence that intensive outreach is associated with higher higher education progression with particularly strong effects for free school meal students. But his argument was that outreach cannot carry the whole burden if the barriers are also about attainment, provision, transport, finance, subject availability and local labour markets.
Instead of focusing only on generating demand for higher education, regional models should build what Datta called “regional opportunity infrastructure.” The local conditions that make higher education visible, reachable, affordable and connected to progression into skilled work. This means connecting outreach with real provision: Level 4 and above routes, further education, higher education, employers, local authorities, skills plans, transport, finance and student support.
For universities, colleges, employers, local government and community organisations, the key question becomes: what routes are genuinely available to students in this place, and what is missing?
Key Lessons for Universities and Policymakers
Datta closed with a set of practical asks that are relevant to anyone working on access and participation:
- Treat place as structural: geography is not background noise; it shapes the whole opportunity pathway.
- Keep selective routes on the agenda: social mobility should not be reduced to a handful of elite destinations, but selective institutions and high-return courses still matter.
- Move beyond outreach-only thinking: outreach is valuable, but it cannot solve barriers around transport, finance, provision and labour markets alone.
- Address provision, not just aspiration: if the right course is not accessible in a viable place or format, students have not been offered a meaningful choice.
- Build local opportunity infrastructure: schools, colleges, universities, employers and communities need to work together around pathways into good work.
Supporting Disadvantaged Students in Higher Education Starts with Place
Supporting disadvantaged students in higher education means recognising that opportunity is shaped locally and cumulatively. Students should not have to choose between opportunity and place, and high ambition must be made credible through accessible pathways, strong advice, suitable provision and visible routes into employment.
For higher education providers and policymakers, the challenge is clear: build partnerships with the funding, authority and local trust to change what is possible for young people in every region. To hear Jon Datta’s full session and explore the wider conference programme, watch the Supporting Disadvantaged Students in Higher Education Conference on demand.
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