“Getting on is as important as getting in”

Ella, Former Programme Officer

The strategic murmurs from OfS are that universities should move away from contextual offers. Based on her lived experience, Programme Officer, Ella, questions the wisdom of this.

In her recent speech, Minister of State for Universities, Michelle Donelan, signalled an end to contextual offers for students from underrepresented groups, opting instead for a shift towards a more meritocratic admissions process. This shift would see contextual offers replaced with a process that expects universities to work closely with schools to lift up attainment instead so that the grade expectations are the same for all applicants. The goal? An admissions process that sees a levelling up for all students, rather than a system that offers underrepresented students a “helping hand”.

As a former student who benefitted from a contextual offer, and also as a person who works with young people from underrepresented backgrounds, I find this extremely concerning.

The truth is I probably would not have gone to a Russell Group university if I had not been given a contextual offer when applying at 17. I will be forever grateful for the immensely positive impact that it had on my life; enabling me to study at the University of Manchester and then progress to study my masters at the University of Bristol.

It wasn’t that I wasn’t as smart as my counterparts or didn’t work as hard. But attending a comprehensive school in London, coming from a single-parent home, being of black-heritage and being the first generation in my immediate family to attend university meant that securing a Russell Group place was more challenging.

I do believe that an emphasis on university and school partnerships and a focus on raising student attainment across their lifecycle is very important. However, in favouring equality over equity, those most underrepresented in higher education will be the ones most impacted. Levelling up for all does not mean that all will benefit.

I worry that in putting an emphasis on universities scrapping contextual offers and moving towards more ownership over school outcomes, three big things will happen.

Firstly, this policy puts the onus on universities rather than the government to make real conclusive change to access to higher education which feels like the government is essentially stepping back from their own social mobility duties. It is not until we have policy change at the core of our social mobility strategy in this country that we will start to see real impactful change ripple down into all areas of society including, but not limited, to education.

Secondly, if universities and schools do adopt these policies, the likelihood is that we will not be able to feel the impact of them for years to come whilst they are ironed out and put in place. In the meantime, those students who find themselves applying to universities during this transition period will be the victims of contextual offers being slashed, risking their chance of going to higher tier universities.

Thirdly, universities run the risk of further becoming sites that enable the elite and exclude the rest of society. In scrapping contextual offers, those students from backgrounds that give them a head start are likely to overpopulate these spaces. Universities will become places that no longer host an array of people from different backgrounds, which will have a ripple effect on the academic discussions happening within their four walls. A lack of diverse students from all walks of life will reduce the creativity, legitimacy and quality of learning within these institutions.

I am extremely proud to be able to say that I went on to receive a first class honours and distinction in my undergraduate and masters degrees respectively from two highly ranked Russell group universities. I am even more proud of these achievements when looking at how statistically unlikely this is when you are labelled as being a student from an underrepresented background in higher education. Without a contextual offer in the first instance, neither of these achievements would have been possible. Do we really want to risk taking away that chance from other students like me?