Higher Education in Britain: Growing Opportunities, Deepening Divisions

This paper investigates the patterns and trends in higher education in Britain over the last five decades (1972–2025). Drawing on most authoritative national representative data, we examine class, gender and ethnic differences in educational attainment, focusing on access to higher education. The analysis is situated within major sociological debates on education, particularly modernisation theory and rational action theory, which respectively anticipate declining and persistent class differences in educational attainment. The findings indicate widening class differences, a reversal of gender differences, and substantial ethnic variation. This paper then considers the extent to which these findings converge with, or depart from, the existing literature. A central feature of prevailing theories of educational attainment is their emphasis on class-lined inequalities in family income; there is strong evidence that income inequality between classes in Britain has widened over the past 50 years. This growing income gap closely mirrors the class gap in higher education. Building on the most systematic research, the present analysis extends and enriches the stratification tradition in the study of higher education in Britain, both conceptually and empirically.