The violence Black students experience at university should remind us that access means little without inclusion

What motivates students to take on Access and Outreach work? Time-consuming and often unremunerated, students are rarely doing it for the perks. For some, Access work is a means of giving back to an institution we feel has been the making of us. For others, it’s a commitment to social mobility and equitable access. For many, especially those of us with backgrounds or identities underrepresented in higher education, it’s both. Engagement in Outreach work, however, is rarely as high from students from underrepresented backgrounds as our institutions would like – and, from my own experiences, I’ve seen it dwindle as students progress through their degrees. This lack of engagement is often accepted without interrogation, and Access and equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) policies alike unfold without addressing it. But what if the way we approach access to university – and our failures to link it adequately to inclusion at university – make it more difficult for our minoritised students to engage in Access work?