The start of the 2023-24 academic year will mark a watershed moment. Thanks to the new tick-box question on UCAS forms, institutions will be starting the year armed with hard data on which of their incoming students have parental responsibility.
But why does this matter – and how can we use the data?
Nobody knows how many student parents are currently in UK higher education because this data has never been collected in any organised way.
Unlike many cohorts attending university under the widening participation agenda, student parents are not considered by the Office for Students to be a standalone underrepresented group and as such, they have never been required to feature in institutional access and participation plans. None of the 12 risk factors identified in the new OfS guidance on access and participation recognise parental responsibility in itself as a potential barrier to university success.
