The Irish Times view on access to higher education: too many barriers

The growth of higher education in Ireland over recent decades has been a great success story. Student numbers doubled between 1991 and 2009 to just over 145,000. By last year, including part-timers, they climbed to almost a quarter of a million. The EU’s long-term target for 2020 was that 40 per cent of its population between the ages of 30 and 34 would have degrees. By 2013, Ireland’s figure was already at 51 per cent.

Yet it is also true that large sections of society continue to face barriers accessing higher education. Travellers, single parents, people with disabilities, care-leavers and students from disadvantaged areas are significantly under-represented at university level. The gap is especially stark in the capital. School-leavers from affluent parts of Dublin are twice as likely to progress to college compared to those from less well-off areas.

Access routes, financial incentives for universities and in-college supports have helped to achieve a degree of success in boosting the numbers of under-represented groups in higher education, but there is still a long way to go. A recent review of the National Plan for Equity of Access to Higher Education 2015-2019 found that while the proportion of students from poorer backgrounds had improved, they still faced additional barriers accessing university, especially the more prestigious college courses.

Among students with disabilities, the trends have been positive. Just over 12 per cent of new entrants in higher education in 2019-20 were students with disabilities, exceeding the original national access plan target of 8 per cent. For students who are Travellers, there were marginal improvements, but numbers were still disappointingly low. In 2019-2020, 48 new entrants were Irish Travellers, compared with 25 seven years earlier.

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A new national access plan for 2022-2026, to be published shortly, offers a fresh chance to work towards levelling the playing field. The blueprint, once again, will set targets for increasing the proportion of students from underrepresented backgrounds. In a significant change, it will focus on improving graduation and employment rates among underrepresented groups, instead of simply focusing on the numbers progressing to college. This is crucial given that drop-out rates among students with disabilities and from poorer backgrounds are higher than average.

Simply getting in the gate of college is not enough. Education may, in theory, be the great leveller, but it is more complex than that. It requires surrendering privilege; setting aside more places for vulnerable students; properly funding access programmes and supports; and forging closer links between colleges and school leavers in under-privileged areas. The backgrounds of young people should never pre-determine their level of educational achievement.