Students-as-insurers: rethinking ‘risk’ for disadvantaged young people considering higher education in England

ABSTRACT

The conventional view since the early 2000s has been that participation in higher education (HE) is a risky pathway for disadvantaged young people in England; the social risk of entering an alien environment combines with the financial risk of rising costs and questionable long-term returns. This riskiness has been constructed as a major barrier to participation. However, national administrative data cast doubt on whether this analysis still holds true. Despite significant rises in tuition fees, the proportion of disadvantaged young people entering HE has continued to rise, with advantaged groups seemingly being more price-sensitive. Data from recent qualitative studies has also suggested that young people are now less attuned to risks. This paper considers whether circumstances in wider society have shifted perceptions of risk. The volatility resulting from the global financial crisis appears to have repositioned HE as a less risky option than early entry to the labour market, especially with more jobs becoming ‘graduate’, while the social risk has declined as HE has diversified. The paper draws on theoretical perspectives from Beck, Boudon, Simon and Kahneman to argue that many disadvantaged young people now view HE as a form of ‘insurance’ against an uncertain future.

KEYWORDS:

• Higher education
• risk
• investment
• insurance
• labour market

Acknowledgements

This paper evolved out of a symposium at the 2016 Annual Conference of the Society for Research into Higher Education. I would like to acknowledge the contribution of Ron Thompson, Ciaran Burke and Malcolm Brynin to some of the thinking behind this paper and for making me aware of other relevant work, although they bear no responsibility for any of its shortcomings.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Because of the devolved nature of the United Kingdom, the education systems across the four constituent nations is markedly different. This paper will focus primarily on England, which comprises around 85% of the HE sector in the UK, although some of the statistics used relate to the UK as a whole.