This paper examines a group of fifty-eight 13–14-year-olds’ early perceptions of and engagement with higher education (HE). Using a Bourdieusian lens, it critically analyses these working-class young people’s future education aspirations. Specifically, it questions whether they accept and ‘buy-in’ to university’s promise of economic gain. Much research has looked at working-class students’ access to HE, but this paper offers a much earlier conceptualisation of this crucial decision-making process and considers how the next generation of applicants assess the value and cost of HE.

Across Europe, the value of a university degree is increasingly associated with economic reward. With a focus on the enhancement of graduates’ labour market outcomes, other understandings of the purpose of HE are arguably marginalised (McArthur, 2011). Students are positioned as employment-focussed consumers who view their entry into HE in largely instrumental terms and make transactional decisions about what and where to study. No longer primarily citizens benefitting from a public good, it is argued elsewhere that their focus is on having a degree rather than being a learner (Molesworth et al., 2009).  

Most studies that make this assessment of students-as-consumers focus on policies and institutions. Importantly, only a small number consider the perspectives of students themselves on the purpose of HE (Brooks et al., 2021; Tomlinson, 2017). Those that do highlight how as well as preparing students for the labour market, HE has intrinsic value that nurtures personal growth and contributes to societal development. In contrast to the research in our paper, such studies typically concentrate on current university students or prospective students on the cusp of entering HE. Our research focusses on the perspectives of a group of much younger pupils who are mid-way through their secondary education, questioning whether they consider HE participation to be worthwhile.

England provides a particularly compelling context in which to examine how these pupils perceive university. Here, employability has assumed a visible position in political narratives around HE since the Dearing Report (1997) recommended enhancements to graduate employability within the university curriculum. More recently, the regulator in England has strengthened its use of graduate labour market outcomes as a key metric in assessments of quality (OfS, 2022) and universities’ approaches to widening participation (Donelan, 2021). Additionally, predicated on the assumption that students consider a degree as a worthwhile private investment, students in England are expected to incur considerable amounts of individual debt to pay annual tuition fees of up to £9535. Such debt is arguably now configured as a normative part of the university experience (Evans & Donnelly, 2018; Harrison et al., 2015).

An important characteristic of the pupils in our study is that they come from working-class backgrounds. As existing research shows, for these pupils material constraints are likely to place financial and geographical boundaries around HE participation (Donnelly & Evans, 2016; Patiniotis & Holdsworth, 2005), and inform perceptions of what is plausible (Reay et al., 2009). Recognising that in the social world ‘everything is not equally possible or impossible’ (Bourdieu, 1986, p. 46), our research draws theoretically on the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu. Applying his often-overlooked concept of illusio, we examine pupils’ interest in the ‘game’ of higher education, focussing on whether and why they believe (or not) at this early stage that participating is worthwhile. Through this approach we are alert to how this group of young people come to the game from very different social positions to their more advantaged peers. We examine how habitus guides their interpretations of HE’s offerings, whilst also interrogating the firm role capital plays in dictating the resources disadvantaged pupils can mobilise within the game to make university decisions.

The research uses a critical participatory action research (CPAR) method (Kemmis et al., 2014). In CPAR reciprocity between the researchers and the participants is given prominence and decisions about what to explore and what to change are taken collectively. The aim of the project was to open up ‘communicative spaces’(Kemmis & McTaggart, 2005) in which pupils, teachers, charity stakeholders and a visual facilitator could reflect together on young working-class pupils’ perceptions of the value of university and its viability as an education destination. The research was conducted in the north of England with 58 secondary school pupils (aged 13-14) who were experiencing a university taster day in May 2024. A group of four researchers, two charity representatives, 4 teachers, including one senior leader, and one visual facilitator contributed to the event. The urban secondary school the pupils attended caters for over 1200 11-16-year-olds and was selected as it is based in one of the 30th most deprived 317 districts in England. 80% of pupils who took part were living in areas of high deprivation and 70% came from neighbourhoods with low progression into HE. Methods included three participatory creative workshops. The first considered the pupils’ perceptions of ‘good’ things and ‘bad’ things they associated with going to university by drawing a pair of hands on a piece of card and selecting one hand to include the good, and the other the bad, culminating in writing the most important aspects on a jointly collated post-it-note display board. The second workshop incorporated use of a cardboard person-shaped cutout, where pupils illustrated perceptions of a typical university student on one side, then on the other side drew, wrote and coloured aspects about themselves to represent their identity. The third workshop involved a co-produced film to narrate young working-class perceptions about going to university and depict real-life experiences about applying for and attending university. Each workshop was supplemented by short interviews with pupils as they completed the activities. The CPAR approach recognises young people as experts in their own lives and was cyclical in nature, capturing in ‘real-life’ time how the pupils felt about going to university, as well as their changing perceptions. Initial analysis of each of the three workshops was inductive, considering emerging themes focusing on the pupils’ thoughts, experiences, and concerns. The research adhered to the British Educational Research Association’s ethical guidelines (BERA, 2024).

Our findings show that this particular group of pupils express a desire to experience university in ways that are not exclusively focussed on employability and preparation for the labour market. They are enthused by the opportunities university offers to expand their social capital by making new friends and forming relationships with peers who share similar interests. Notably, they are also interested in being a learner not only gaining a degree. They are excited by being able to ‘find out what you really like’ and ‘study your favourite subjects’. Economic factors are, however, dominant in shaping the pupils’ perceptions of whether university is worth attending. Even at this early age, they talk about how gaining a degree will lead them to better employment opportunities, more money or increase their chances of getting their ‘dream job’. These advantages are also counterbalanced with concerns about university’s financial cost and worries about the accumulation of debt. We argue that the pupils’ apprehensions are connected to their working-class backgrounds, tied-up in economic capital as well as cultural capital in the form of perceptions of debt and knowledge of how to navigate such systems. HE is considered to be a product, not solely an experience; these pupils are weighing up whether this product is worthwhile investing in. Overall, our research makes an original contribution by considering how this next generation of applicants, at a much younger age to those in other studies, are already influenced by the economic ‘game’ of HE. Our findings raise important considerations for countries elsewhere in Europe by demonstrating how national HE policies can have wide-ranging impacts on future students, and be mediated by social factors, at a much earlier age than has previously been acknowledged.

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