Student Demand and Institutional Diversification: The Case of England

Abstract

Following a period of dramatic but largely unplanned expansion, government priorities for future growth include changing the pattern of demand for English higher education and widening participation in colleges and universities of all types. With reform of tuition fees tied to access agreements and new foundation degrees designed in association with employers, a diversity of institutional mission rather than formal stratification is the goal of post-binary policy. However, strategies to stimulate demand for new kinds of higher education are in tension with efforts to reduce disparities in participation in different parts of the system. In the case of England, it is argued, such policies prefigure a democratisation of access and a diversion of demand, albeit modest in scale and limited in reach.