This paper reports on findings from a recent research study on access to higher education in Scotland. This comprehensive study was funded by the Scottish Executive and included statistical analysis of trends and case study and interview data which focused on a range of institutions and practices. Increasing and widening access to higher education has been a central feature of post compulsory education policy across Europe and the study also reviewed policy in a number of European countries and in Australia. The focus of this paper is on the character of expansion in Scotland as a particular example of wider European trends. The paper discusses the implications of the changes in Scotland for the policy objective of widening access to previously excluded groups. The paper focuses on two related issues: the increasing institutional diversity in higher education in Scotland and the increasingly flexible nature of the delivery of higher education. The paper explores the extent to which these features contribute to the explicit commitment to equity and social justice in the national policy of widening access. While half of young Scots now participate in full time higher education, they enter an increasingly differentiated higher education system which spans the further education sector consisting of community colleges, as well as the university sector which is itself composed of a range of institutional types. While this institutional diversity has been constructed positively as meeting a range of student and labour market needs, it is important to note that the relative segmentation of higher education means differential outcomes for higher education students in terms of employment and life chances. The paper explores the possibility that a more diverse higher education sector may lead to new patterns of inequality. The increasing institutional diversity in higher education has certainly introduced greater dynamism in the form and delivery of Scottish higher education including greater flexibility of curricula, modes and pathways. This emphasis on flexibility is fuelled by a discourse of lifelong learning which permeates current education policy. This, in turn, emphasizes the responsibility of individuals to participate across the life cycle (and thus to combine participation with work and domestic commitments) as well as the responsibility of institutions to respond effectively to student needs. Implicit within this discourse is the idea that the flexible delivery of higher education in diverse modes and settings is emancipating for students and perhaps also for educators and educational institutions. However, this ignores the extent to which we expect students themselves to be flexible. Of relevance here are flexible working practices and domestic commitments. Drawing on interview data, the paper explores the way in which the ability to participate flexibly is socially differentiated. While increasing diversity and dynamism in higher education are usually constructed positively as bringing benefits to students, this paper discusses a more critical approach which recognizes that the student experience is now characterized by greater complexity and risk as well as diversity. These risks are usually left unexamined in the rush to recruit more students. Crucially, it is argued that the risks of participation are unevenly distributed across the student population. The paper draws on insights from gender studies, the literature on spatiality and learning and the sociology of time in the discussion of these issues.