Socio-economic inequalities continue to condition access to higher education, according to a report that reveals that 56% of the most disadvantaged students did not continue studying after finishing secondary school.
The data refer to the 2021/2022 academic year and are included in the report “Revision of the Higher Education Access System 2022/2023”, published on Tuesday on the website of the Directorate-General for Higher Education.
In a chapter dedicated to equity in access to higher education, the authors begin by acknowledging that “the expansion of higher education has not succeeded in eliminating socio-economic inequalities, nor has it translated into total equality of opportunity in access to higher education”.
This is reflected in the data analyzed regarding the transition rates of students from secondary to higher education, which show disparities between the most and least deprived.
Looking at the students who finished secondary school in the 2020/2021 school year, only 44% of the beneficiaries of the A bracket of school social action went on to higher education, which means that more than half did not continue their studies.
This is a difference of 17.6 percentage points compared to the 78.7% of students not receiving school social action who, in the following year, were already attending higher education, and who are slightly behind the C (59.7%) and B (55.9%) students.
Considering only the scientific-humanistic courses, the percentage of disadvantaged students who continue studying is higher (62.4%), but is still a long way behind their peers who don’t benefit from support (78.7%).
Another indicator that reveals the persistence of inequalities is the percentage of students placed on excellent courses, which, according to the report, “is always more than double” among the least deprived, compared to the most disadvantaged students.
The authors therefore recommend measures that are particularly focused on A-level students and underline the importance of scholarships, which in higher education have a significant impact on the likelihood of a student dropping out by the end of the first year, which is always lower compared to non-scholarship students.
However, they add, “the awarding of grants to socio-economically disadvantaged students, while favoring the completion of higher education by recipients of this type of financial support, is not necessarily associated with widening access to higher education by this target group”.
This is only the case when the scholarships awarded correspond to a “sufficiently generous” amount or to a commitment even before entering higher education.
The report also cites data from previous studies which showed, for example, a preference for the university subsystem over the polytechnic subsystem among students from families with higher income levels, and the opposite in the case of the poorest students
Others also confirmed the persistence of an “intergenerational transmission of education”, in which young people’s higher education continues to be “strongly conditioned by the qualification levels of their parents”.
The conclusions of the study on equity in access to higher education are worrying students and the Porto Academic Federation (FAP), who are arguing in favor of increasing the priority quota for applicants benefiting from school social action (bracket A) from 2% to 4%.
“Higher education should combat social inequalities and be seen as a social elevator, but this data raises fears that it could be a reproducer of inequalities,” stressed the president of the FAP, Francisco Porto Fernandes, quoted in a statement.
In an effort to provide a response, the Federation is planning to set up a study support center for needy secondary school students in Porto.
