7.2

Higher Education

Higher Ambitions


The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) published its blueprint for higher education in the UK. The paper explores a number of proposals, but most relevantly for the careers sector is how the government will ensure that all those who have the ability to benefit can get access to higher education.

This is influenced by the report from the Panel for Fair Access to the Professions, which considered access to higher education to be fundamental to social mobility.

There is a commitment within the proposals to improve advice and ‘encouragement' for young people to enable them to set their sites on university. This will depend on co-operation with the Department for Children, Schools and Families on the IAG Strategy, as well as packages of financial support.

Read Higher Ambitions.

Futuretrack

The Higher Education Careers Services Unit (HECSU) has been leading a major piece of career-focused research amongst 50,000 students, which intends to follow them from their UCAS application through to their first job.

Futuretrack examines the relationship between higher education, employment and how students' views of career options change during their studies.

The second Futuretrack report was published in late 2009 and highlighted some interesting findings on career thinking by undergraduate students:

  • The most frequently used form of careers information or careers guidance used by respondents in their first year were careers events organised by the careers service for first year students - with 82% of first years aware of their careers service.
  • However, actual usage of the career service varied according to age, subject, type of HEI attended and domicile. Black and Asian students were more likely to have used it than white students. Mature students, male students, black students, students studying discipline-based academic subjects, students studying at higher or medium tariff universities and European or other overseas students were more aware of the services it offered than other students.
  • Changes in career plans varied by the degree to which respondents had opted for a vocational subject, with students on specialist vocational courses more likely to than others to have stated that their experience of higher education had reinforced their career plans.
  • Students studying general discipline-based academic subjects most often reported that their perception of the occupation they would enter on completion of their courses was neither clearer nor less clear than before.

Read the full FutureTrack report (2009)  

NUS/HSBC Student Experience Report 2009: Choosing a University and Course

This mini-report from the National Union of Students considers the choices made by students upon applying to higher education. Key findings:

  • students appear mainly motivated to apply for higher education by the impact a degree will have on their future careers, with female respondents significantly more likely than male respondents to say they wanted to attend university to facilitate their career
  • in contrast to the reasons given for wanting to attend university, the reasons for choosing their course showed more concern for their personal interests - as opposed to choosing a course purely to facilitate a future career
  • while choice of university was most likely to be based on whether or not the university had the course students wanted, motivations were affected by the type of institution that students attend
  • students that attended Russell Group institutions were significantly more likely to be motivated by the prestige or reputation of their institution.

Read the full report.