This statistics publication includes the latest information on measures of Widening Participation in Higher Education.
These include estimates of progression to higher education (HE) by age 19 for state-funded pupils by personal characteristics and for A level and equivalent students, by school or college type, who progressed to HE by age 19, with breakdowns for high tariff higher education providers.
The pupil characteristic measure cover pupils who attended English state-funded schools and special schools at age 15 who have progressed to HE in UK Higher Education Providers and English Further Education Colleges.
The school type measure covers students who attended English schools and colleges at Key Stage 5 at age 17 who have progressed to HE in UK Higher Education Providers and English Further Education Colleges.
High Tariff Providers
Providers are ranked based on the mean UCAS tariff score of their intake and then allocated to low, medium and high tariff groupings with each forming roughly a third of students in the cohort.
The publication previously used provider tariff groupings produced by HESA. However, HESA no longer produce these groupings. The Department has produced updated groupings using a simplified version of the HESA methodology. These have been applied to all years presented.
The calculation is now based on the total UCAS tariff points (from all qualifications) for each individual capped at the equivalent of three A* grades at A level. The HESA methodology differed in that it built up the tariff points for each individual based on their top three A level or equivalent qualifications before being normalised against the maximum points score (equivalent to three A* grades at A level).
This change has a small impact on the mean tariff scores of the vast majority of institutions but does lead to some providers changing tariff groups.
However, the measure is more stable because we now restrict to English domiciled entrants rather than UK domiciled, which provides closer alignment with the cohort of pupils in English schools and colleges used as the basis of this publication.
More information about HE provider tariff groupings can be found in the methodology document.
The main publication text focuses on high tariff providers, however, tariff groupings and mean tariff scores for each institution can be downloaded from the Explore data and files section above.
Changes to Matching Methodology
The methodology used to match the National Pupil Database (NPD) to the Higher Education Statistics Agency’s (HESA) Student Record and the Individualised Learner Record (ILR) has been revised.
Whilst every effort has been made to have consistency with the match carried out in previous years, it is likely that the change in matching has had some impact on outputs. We believe any impact on the numbers in this publication is very small but it may affect comparisons between 2022/23 and earlier years for small groups in particular.
Prior Attainment
Variations in progression to HE by student characteristics can largely be explained by prior attainment [Socio-economic, ethnic and gender differences in HE participation, Nov 2015 (opens in a new tab)]. Prior attainment is not accounted for by the measures presented here.
The publication relies on matched data and all figures should be considered as estimates.
Other Publications
There are other sources of information on Widening Participation in Higher Education. These are summarised in the methodology document.
DfE also produce destination measures showing the percentage of students progressing to further learning at Higher Education Institutions:
Key Stage 4 and Key Stage 5 Destinations (opens in a new tab)
The destination measures differ from those presented here as they cover those entered for A levels or equivalent qualifications at ages 16 to 18 as opposed to age 17 for this publication. Destinations figures cover only those who stayed in the education destination for at least the first two terms, whereas this publication covers all entrants except those who dropped out in the first two weeks.