Foundation years are very often misunderstood as little more than alternative entry routes for students with lower qualifications.
Critics sometimes frame them as financially motivated recruitment tools designed to increase student numbers.
But neither of these captures what successful foundation years actually do and why they matter, particularly for students from non-traditional backgrounds.
The hidden curriculum
For many students, succeeding at university is not simply about academic ability. It is about learning how to navigate social and institutional environments that can initially feel unfamiliar, intimidating, and like they are designed for somebody else. From this perspective, foundation years have an important role not just in developing academic skills, but in helping students build confidence, belonging, identity, and familiarity with higher education itself.
Students entering university from non-traditional backgrounds often experience insecurities around whether they belong in higher education. Mature students, first-generation students, students with criminal records, care leavers, and those returning to education after difficult experiences may arrive with significant anxieties around academic competence, social acceptance, or understanding the expectations of university life. In this context, the foundation year can act as a transformational space that helps students become familiar with the culture, systems, and rhythms of higher education before progressing onto their degree programme.
One in eight
Currently, students from disadvantaged backgrounds represent around one in eight students attending university. When entering higher education, non-traditional learners often have insecurities around the competencies needed for university study. Mature students, for example, may lack academic confidence and therefore see the foundation year as an opportunity to develop both confidence and skills before progressing further.
The problem is that foundation provision within universities is often positioned as a corrective process, offering an additional year merely designed to help “underprepared” students catch up before starting a degree programme. But this framing fundamentally misunderstands what these programmes need to achieve. Too often the focus remains narrowly on academic skills when equal attention should be given to building identity, confidence, and belonging. This is best achieved through learner orientation, institution familiarisation, peer mentoring, and activities that help students build friendships and supportive learning networks.
Entering higher education can be particularly challenging for foundation year learners because the traditional image of the university student is still often associated with privilege and prior familiarity with academic culture. Universities continue to reward forms of knowledge, confidence, and communication more commonly associated with dominant social groups, which can leave foundation year learners feeling out of place. Consequently, many students experience difficulties around identity, confidence, and engagement when entering university. They are not only adjusting to new academic demands but often experiencing the loss of previous social networks and familiar environments. Foundation years therefore play an important role in helping learners develop the cultural capital needed to successfully negotiate degree-level study and progress through higher education with confidence.
Helping learners reduce the unknowns, make new friends, and develop continuous professional relationships with teaching staff all contribute towards creating a stronger sense of belonging within university life. These are important elements in the process of identity formation as a higher education learner. If foundation year students do not develop a strong sense of belonging, this can negatively affect confidence, engagement, attainment, retention, and overall wellbeing later in the student journey. Successful transition into higher education is particularly important for foundation year students because these cohorts are often increasingly diverse in age, experience, and educational background.
Relationship goals
Strong relationships with teaching staff are crucial in helping foundation year students negotiate a smoother passage into university life. Equally important are supportive peer relationships, which help build collective confidence, resilience, and belonging. Establishing strong social bonds in both academic and personal contexts help students develop engagement, identity, and self-belief. Many foundation year students experience feelings associated with imposter syndrome, often questioning whether they truly belong within higher education. This can become an omnipresent feature of university life for students who feel they are “not good enough” or who struggle to recognise and accept their own achievements due to previous educational experiences, low confidence, or personal insecurities around learning.
This means the most effective foundation years are not simply “catch-up” programmes focused narrowly on academic remediation. They help students develop confidence in themselves as learners. They familiarise students with university processes, teaching styles, assessment expectations, and support systems. They create opportunities for students to build friendships, peer networks, and supportive relationships with staff. In short, they help students feel that university is somewhere they can legitimately belong.
This process matters because higher education often rewards forms of confidence, communication, and cultural familiarity that many traditional students have already been exposed to before arriving at university. Students who enter through foundation years may therefore experience feelings of self-doubt or imposter syndrome, particularly during transition points into degree-level study. Without a sense of belonging, academic confidence can quickly deteriorate, affecting engagement, retention, and attainment.
Taking advantage
Done well, however, foundation years can place students in a position of advantage. Students often progress into undergraduate study with a stronger understanding of university expectations, greater familiarity with institutional systems, and increased confidence in their ability to succeed. They are not simply academically prepared; they are socially and emotionally prepared for higher education too.
If widening participation is genuinely about reducing inequality within higher education, and increasing social mobility more broadly, then universities need to move beyond seeing foundation years purely as academic bridging programmes. Their real value lies in helping students successfully transition into higher education as confident learners who feel recognised, capable, and able to belong within the university environment.
For many students from non-traditional backgrounds, the challenge is therefore not simply academic preparedness, but navigating a space that was not traditionally designed with them in mind. Succeeding in higher education is not just about building academic skills, but about developing identity, confidence, and recognition so that students genuinely feel they belong. For foundation years to truly work, they need to be designed around building confidence, belonging, and learner identity as much as bridging any perceived “academic gap”.
