Whilst discussions on higher education (HE) often focus on study at a university, there are other ways in which post-compulsory education students access and achieve HE qualifications. In the United Kingdom, an alternative approach to university education involves further education (FE) colleges. The beginning of this more diverse, and [Page 580]arguably more innovative, phase of HE provision is usually linked to the policy expectation that 50% of 18- to 30-year-olds will enroll in HE, a goal established by the Labour Party when it took political power in the United Kingdom in 1997.

Data from the Department for Education indicate that in 2016–2017, the provisional Higher Education Initial Participation Rate, an estimate of the likelihood of a young person participating in HE by age 30, was 49.8%, ...