Abstract
This article puts forward the argument that young migrants considering Higher and Further Education require robust structural support that attends to their psycho-social, communal, and material needs. Despite evidence of young migrants having high aspirations to achieve in this country, policy in the United Kingdom increasingly presents them with structural barriers rather than structures of support. This argument is based on findings from a recent research project which was conducted in the East Anglian region of the UK with children originally from central and eastern Europe. The children were all aged between 13–15 years and living in designated deprived areas. The article situates the project's findings in the context of the wider literature on aspirations in relation to education and employment, and examines the implications of recent UK government policy changes on the structures impacting on migrant youth's agency to achieve through Higher and Further Education. The authors suggest that migrant students are uncomfortably suspended in the gulf between desires and outcomes, with government policies failing to match the vibrancy of their agency to achieve.