Sir, – Peter McGuire's article ("How your address affects your chances of going to college", November 27th) provided an interesting insight into the impact of location on the progression to third-level education. It is good to see spatial accessibility to higher education more prominent in the policy debate.
While the school-level analysis provided by Mr McGuire is to be welcomed, the nature of the data analysed and the county-level analysis provided masks some additional important issues.
First, given the roles of a variety of factors in influencing participation decisions, it is important to consider the interplay between where an individual lives and their socio-economic situation.
Second, it is also pertinent to look at the impact of these factors on more specific higher-education outcomes, such as choices of higher-education institution type, degree level and field of study. It is also especially relevant with regard to issues of income inequality and social mobility.
The influence of geographic accessibility, social class and other factors on a range of higher-education outcomes have formed the basis of an on-going collaborative programme of research we are engaged in.
The results support the assertion made by Mr McGuire that travel distance can have a negative impact on participation, but crucially our analysis also demonstrates that these travel distance effects only matter for schoolleavers from lower social classes.
There is no negative impact from living far away from a higher-education institution on the likelihood of participation for a school-leaver from a higher social class.
We also show that the negative effects of distance are most pronounced for students with lower CAO points from lower social classes. Even with the same CAO points and similar geographic accessibility to a university, those from a “low” social class had virtually zero chance of pursing a medical degree compared to someone from a “high” social class.
Mr McGuire’s use of the feeder school list to consider such issues is to be commended and the combination of his analysis with our own research shows that where a young person lives can play a significant role in their higher-education outcomes.
While the student grant scheme is designed to alleviate these inequalities, they unfortunately continue to persist. A more efficient scheme, with increasing, stepwise grants at greater distances, may help better alleviate the costs of living further from a higher education institution and thus provide better equality of access for young people across Ireland. – Yours, etc, DR DARRAGH FLANNERY Department of Economics, University of Limerick.
DR DARRAGH FLANNERY,
Department of Economics,
University of Limerick.
Dr JOHN CULLINAN,
Lecturer,
Economics,
National University of Ireland, Galway.