While there is a large and growing body of evidence on how well children with experience of social care do at school, little is known about how they fare when it comes to higher education. Researchers from the Rees Centre at the University of Oxford set out to fill in some of these gaps.
Published by Transforming Access and Student Outcomes in Higher Education (TASO), March 2025
RESEARCH OBJECTIVE
National statistics show looked-after children and others who come into contact with children's social services tend to do less well in education than their peers. While there is a large and growing body of evidence on how well children with experience of social care do at school, little is known about how they fare when it comes to higher education. Researchers from the Rees Centre at the University of Oxford set out to fill in some of these gaps.
METHOD
The study draws on national datasets on 556,240 young people born between September 1998 and August 1999 and living in England from at least the age of 11 onwards. The researchers used this information to explore the experiences of five groups – care leavers; children who had ever been in care; children who had ever been on a child protection plan; children who were classed as a child in need for more than six months; and children classed as a child in need for less than six months. They compared outcomes for these groups with outcomes for children eligible for free school meals and with the general population.
KEY FINDINGS
The study found young people with experience of children's social care are less likely to enter and progress through higher education.
Care leavers – and those who had ever been in care – were four times less likely to enter higher education by the age of 22 and were also more than twice as likely to drop out, compared with peers from the general population.
The analysis found substantially lower rates of young people with experience of social care entering higher education aged 18 or 19, attending a “top-tier” university and completing their degree by the age of 22. The drop-out rate for those with experience of social care was generally double that of the general population across the different groups and similar to rates for those eligible for free school meals. The drop-out rates for care leavers were particularly high at 18% compared with 7% for the general population.
Rates of academic achievement were lowest for care leavers and those ever in care. However, care leavers had the second highest rate of entry to university at age 18 or 19 among the groups with experience of social care – 51% – which may reflect a higher level of support for care leavers in the transition from post-16 education and training to higher education.
The researchers found rates of entry to higher education among young people with experience of social care varied according to various factors such as attainment at school, sex and special educational needs – just as rates vary for the general population. But even when these factors were taken into account, young people with experience of social care were significantly less likely to enter higher education by the age of 22 than those eligible for free school meals. This suggests the current education and care system is unable to compensate for the combined impact of trauma, disruption, stigma and often poverty experienced by those involved with social services.
The study found a relatively high proportion of young people with experience of social care who did enter higher education took a vocational route – especially care leavers. Of those who entered higher education by the age of 22, more than a third – 36% – got there via post-16 vocational routes, nearly three times as many as the general population.
IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE
The findings show the need for targeted support for students with experience of social care, says TASO. This could include additional funding in the form of a student premium for care leavers. TASO also wants all higher education providers – including top-flight universities – to accept students from vocational routes and actively recruit mature students given the fact people with experience of children's social care are more likely to attend later in life. Efforts to retain students should focus on these groups and universities need to work closely with local authorities to ensure students have appropriate accommodation in term time and non-term time.
FURTHER READING
Care-experienced Students in Higher Education: A case for re-figuring higher education worlds to widen access and further social justice, Samantha Child and Rosa Marvell, British Educational Research Journal, August 2023
Care Leavers’ Transition Into the Labour Market in England, Neil Harrison and others, Rees Centre, January 2023
Care Experienced Young People and Higher Education, What Works for Children's Social Care, May 2020
