Fair game?

This blog was kingly authored by Professor Josie Fraser, Provost and Deputy Vice Chancellor, The Open University and Professor Vic Nicholas, Associate Dean Faculty and Strategy, STEM Faculty, The Open University.

Higher education policy often focuses on funding, regulation and economic returns. Yet beneath these debates lies a simpler question: do we believe everyone should have a fair opportunity to develop their talents and potential?

For more than 50 years, the Open University has been guided by a mission to be “Open to People, Places, Methods and Ideas”. At its heart is a commitment that remains unusual in UK higher education: most undergraduate qualifications have no formal entry requirements. This is not simply a recruitment strategy. It reflects a belief that potential cannot be reduced to exam results achieved at school.

Research from the Fairness Foundation shows that three-quarters of Britons believe everyone should be able to thrive without facing unreasonable barriers to opportunity. People recognise that life chances are not distributed equally.

This is particularly relevant today. Educational experiences vary dramatically depending on where children grow up and the circumstances into which they are born. One in three children in the UK lives in poverty, and increasing numbers of families rely on food banks and emergency support. Such inequalities shape educational outcomes long before young people reach university age and often continue to affect opportunities later in life when people seek to retrain, change direction or progress their careers.

Against this backdrop, access to higher education becomes more important, not less. If opportunities are uneven throughout primary and secondary education, routes into further and higher learning must remain open later in life. The Lifelong Learning Entitlement reflects an important recognition that education should not be a one-off opportunity available to those who fit a particular profile that opens up particular options and choices at 18.

The case for openness is reinforced by evidence that students continue to value higher education. According to the 2026 Student Academic Experience Survey from HEPI and Advance HE, perceptions of value for money have improved significantly. The proportion of students rating their course as good or very good value has reached its highest level in more than a decade, while two-thirds are happy with their choice of course and institution.

Public attitudes appear to be shifting away from Higher Education.  British Social Attitudes survey data show that support for limiting higher education opportunities has grown. In 1983, only 5 per cent of respondents believed there should be fewer opportunities for higher education. By 2025, that figure had risen to 18 per cent. At the same time, the public greatly overestimates graduate regret – people estimate that 40% of graduates regret attending university, when the true figure is just 8%.

Research from the Institute for Fiscal Studies found that a degree increases lifetime earnings by more than £100,000 on average (in present value terms).  Returns are higher in subjects such as medicine and economics while some subjects offer little or no financial gain.  Even so, more than 70% of graduates with lower GCSE attainment see positive earning returns.  Overall, the evidence shows that most graduates benefit through higher lifetime earnings as well as improved skills and confidence, despite media coverage often focussing on the minority who may be financially worse off.

This matters because public attitudes shape political narratives, and political narratives shape policy, and policy ultimately dictates people’s life chances. If higher education is increasingly presented as something that should be reserved for a narrower group of people, there is a risk that policy will follow.

The government consultation proposed for this Autumn will look at options for creating a  Minimum English language Requirement (MER) and linking this requirement to student finance access, and this illustrates the challenge. Restricting finance based on secondary school results risks sending a damaging message: that people who did not achieve particular grades are not worth investing in. Such proposals may appear reasonable if you believe school performance determines capability.

But the evidence suggests otherwise.

At the Open University, around 10,000 students – almost one-third of those registering on undergraduate qualifications in 2025/26 – entered with lower prior educational qualifications (i.e. no A levels). While these students are slightly less likely than our more highly qualified entrants to achieve a 2(i) or First, the awarding gap is less than eight percentage points.

Those figures tell an important story. Prior attainment matters (a bit), but it does not determine destiny. Thousands of students who did not excel at school do go on to succeed when given opportunity. The same is true across the wider higher education sector, where many universities are well-equipped to support students whose potential was not reflected by their school results.

Behind the statistics are individual stories of achievement. Students who struggled at school because of caring responsibilities, ill health, financial hardship or difficult personal circumstances. Many go on to become teachers, nurses, social workers, business leaders and entrepreneurs despite educational journeys that once appeared unremarkable.

At a time of rapid technological and economic change, flexibility in education is becoming even more important. Today’s young people will enter labour markets containing jobs that do not yet exist. Employers already report significant skills shortages in highly skilled occupations. The UK needs more doctors, nurses, teachers and social workers. It also increasingly needs more people who can adapt, reskill and continue learning throughout their lives.

The challenge for higher education is not simply to defend participation. It is to make the case for fairness: fairness of access, fairness of opportunity and fairness in recognising that academic potential develops at different times and in different ways.

If we fail to make that argument convincingly, we risk narrowing opportunity at precisely the moment society needs to widen it. Excluding people from higher education funding because they did not achieve particular grades at school may appear efficient. But it would also be fundamentally unfair.

And fairness is not only a social value. It is an economic necessity.