The funding crisis across UK universities risks sidelining “tough decisions” around widening access, a conference was told.

Speaking at the launch of the World Access to Higher Education Network, John McKendrick, the commissioner for fair access in Scotland, outlined that progress on access had stalled in Scotland in recent years.

In 2016, the Scottish government set a target for 20 per cent of full-time students entering higher education to come from the country’s 20 per cent most deprived areas by 2030. But initial momentum has slowed, falling from a high of 16.7 per cent in 2020-21 to 16.5 per cent in 2021-22.

“Despite these targets and having that sense of purpose, the proportion of those from the 20 per cent most deprived backgrounds entering higher education has flatlined for a few years,” Professor McKendrick said.

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“Perhaps while commitment is still strong, it is wavering slightly because in a tough financial climate when tough decisions have to be made, the idea of doing something when you have very difficult decisions to make for your own institutions becomes a little bit harder to make.”

Panellists at the event discussed the need to address geographic cold spots in higher education provision and to ensure that there are institutions to serve local needs.

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John Blake, director for fair access and participation at England’s Office for Students, noted that London was “saturated” with higher education institutions, in “contrast with other areas of the country where there are few or even no higher education providers in the local area”.

Although England has various world-leading research institutions, “if you were starting from the beginning, you probably wouldn’t put all of them where they are at the moment, and you might try and allocate them more equitably around different regions”.

However, Mr Blake said the discussion about regional provision and learning risked going too far in one direction.

“I think the place-based conversation is really important about making sure that students can access higher education within a region that they see as viable and useful to themselves,” he said. “I do worry, however, that it is getting a bit strong on the ‘stay where you are’ argument.”

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An issue with social mobility within England was that it often meant that students “go to university, move to London and never go back to where [their] parents live”. While the country has “swung back from this”, Mr Blake continued, “we shouldn’t go too far to the point where we’re trying to build a system that encourages students to only consider their local place-based offer, rather than trying to take advantage of that pluralism of offers in other places”.

“I think we need to try to get that balance right, where we enable those who don’t want to be geographically mobile to access higher education, but not limit them to that unnecessarily,” he said.

There has been a “huge” rise in the number of commuter students in England, and it needs to be examined whether “that [is] because people want to do more commuting and they want to be at home and be able to travel in, or might it be because they think they can only afford to do it that way”, Mr Blake said.

“That feels to me like a wrong constraint,” he said.

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juliette.rowsell@timeshighereducation.com