Students from underrepresented backgrounds face extra hurdles as they start their university degree.
Increasingly, universities across the UK sector are recognising these challenges in their various forms, and working to support students “getting in and getting on”. While some excellent access and transition support is blooming across the sector, much of it is taking similar shape.
I recently undertook a Churchill Fellowship to venture abroad and explore support programmes at universities outside of the UK, and therefore outside of the common regulatory pressures, organisational structures, and funding mechanisms that shape most UK approaches.
Overseas practice
My report, “Linking access with ongoing university support”, pulls together best-practice examples from the US and New Zealand, with the aim of helping practitioners and university strategy leads to pick through some of the key questions around shaping this support:
- Do we offer targeted support, or programmes for all students that are likely to particularly benefit underrepresented groups?
- Should we focus on academic preparation, community building, or orienting to the university environment?
- How can we connect between different areas that offer student support, to create consistency and reliability for students across the student journey?
Examples from this research can support practitioners to develop or adjust their approach. My foray into the US and New Zealand higher education systems also raised opportunities at strategic and system-level to support underrepresented students in the UK.
“Academic credit” on summer programmes
Across the universities that I visited, the transition programmes with a focus on academic support for underrepresented students accomplished this by offering “academic credit”.
Degrees in the US and New Zealand are typically a mix and match courses (modules) that each count toward the students’ final degree. In the simplest version, this means a student needs to successfully complete a set number of credits to be eligible to graduate, with some additional subject-specific requirements.
In terms of format, the transition programmes that I visited were 5 or 6 week summer residentials taking place in the summer before students start their degree. This puts them somewhere between a bridging course and a foundation year in the UK. Each of these programmes centred around an academic “for-credit” module that represented progress toward the students’ degree. This allowed students to enter university with a module already complete and grade in hand. Heta Gardiner, University of Auckland, explains how this benefits students of all academic abilities, “It helps high achieving student progress things quicker, and also helps those who struggle in year one to have safety net.”
Having this genuine experience of university learning during the summer programme means that if students struggle, they do so in a safe environment. “We hope they are successful, but we can also identify gaps where they may need more support,” explained Dr Liz Brown, Kaihautū Matua, Executive Director of the Office of Treaty Partnership at the University of Canterbury. “There are lots and lots of supports wrapped around them in those first 5 weeks.” For the Takere programme at the University of Canterbury, the academic course aids the transition to university-style learning and allows students to directly apply insights from study skill sessions or newly introduced university resources. “This is a really good intro course for them because it’s so different from their schooling,” said an academic supporting the Takere programme. “It’s a good handshake on to university.”
These “for-credit” courses legitimise the academic experience for students, and for the academics delivering the course. The summer prep is no longer remedial homework help, but rather a real university course taught by real academics who are paid for prepping and teaching this summer session in the same way they would be for standard term-time modules.
Bringing it back home
How could this apply to the UK higher education context? Particularly for programme leaders working in outreach or student support, the concept of revamping the whole UK degree system is far-fetched at best. But the core concept of legitimising academic preparation can come through other means.
At Caltech, their First Year Success Research Institute (FSRI) is shaped around a research experience culminating in poster presentations and lightning talks, designed to allow students to practice future conference skills. The programme managers described how this genuine research opportunity helps draw students in and mitigates possible issues around a deficit-based model. “The research component of the program really does our marketing work for us,” explained Brody Wyman, Programme Coordinator for FSRI.
Committing to offer holders
The keen observer will also note that these summer programmes take place during the offer holder stage, which on the face of it would not align with the UK system. Indeed, in the US, universities essentially extend unconditional offers, meaning that participants on these summer programmes have already confirmed their destination.
But not so fast. The New Zealand system is more akin to the UK, with an offer holder phase over the summer, and yet universities in New Zealand offer 6- or 7-week residential programmes for their offer holders, free of charge for target groups such as Māori students. In fact, participants on summer bridging programmes at the University of Auckland and University of Canterbury receive their exam results, and therefore discover whether they have met their offer, while on the residential.
While this may seem unusual in the UK context, this is in fact integrated into the targeted Māori student programmes I visited, with advisors meeting participants to discuss results, consider options, and even advocate for remarking or for flexibility from the university. This approach means that University of Auckland and University of Canterbury are making clear commitments to their Māori offer holders, supporting them through a resource-intensive residential and bespoke guidance to find the best path forward, even if they do not meet their offer.
Linking with lifelong learning
While legitimising academic experience on transition programmes may not require a system-level rethink, a UK-wide credit system might not be as far away as it seems.
The Lifelong Learning Entitlement (LLE), while not yet a fully-formed policy, centres around the benefits of flexibility and access, particularly for returning or part-time learners. While these elements of the LLE would certainly be beneficial, the credit system in the US and New Zealand points to additional possible benefits, particularly for underrepresented groups.
Following the example of summer bridging programmes in the US and New Zealand, the LLE could provide a framework for allowing offer holders from underrepresented groups to tackle a specific module of their degree in the summer before starting, allowing them to acclimatise and begin their degree with a confident head-start instead of a deficit mindset.
In the long term, establishing a more credit-based system in the UK through the LLE might allow university transfer pathways. A “transfer student” completes one or two years of study at one university, then applies to transfer to a different university to complete the remaining years of their degree. This is increasingly common in the US, with the National Student Clearinghouse showing that transfer students made up 13.2% of all continuing and returning undergraduate students in the US in 2023. This system allows students to change their mind about which university is right for them, supporting system-wide flexibility. It also has huge implications for access, with many transfer students starting their degrees at a community or technical college to improve their academic standing before transferring to a more competitive university. The transfer system in the US may also serve as a useful model for student support in a post-LLE landscape.
With one eye on the long-term possibilities, the LLE framework could make it easier for universities to develop meaningful bridging programmes for underrepresented students. Further flexibility afforded through the LLE could also support access routes similar to the transfer system in the US. Keeping these potential benefits in mind while developing the details of the LLE could help maximise the impact, particularly for underrepresented groups.
