University as border crossing: Exploring the experiences of health sciences students from low-resourced school communities

In responding to calls to widen access to students from less privileged communities, a South African university revised its admission policy for health sciences degrees to achieve a student population that demographically represents South African society. The new policy extends capacity for up to 40% enrolment from rural and other low-resourced schools. In this paper we report on aspects of a broader study whose data were collected through a semi-structured questionnaire. The paper shares university experiences of the first five cohorts of students from low-quintile and rural schools. We employed Phelan, Davidson and Cao’s (1991) model of students’ multiple worlds to understand participating students’ experiences of transitioning into and through university. The findings provide insights into how the life circumstances of students from low-socio-economic environments affect their transition into and through university at academic and social levels. Viewing transition through the metaphor of ‘border crossing’, these findings challenge stakeholders in higher education (HE) to work towards either easing the crossing or dissolving the boundaries altogether.