Who is missing from higher education?

columns, is unorthodox and somewhat inconvenient for readers. But it should be
effective in alerting readers to the scale of the problem. There is not some alternative
higher quality or more complete dataset on which the widening participation agenda is
based. The data presented here are the best available for these students in this year.

Table 9 - Percentage of Welsh-domiciled students participating in HE by socio-
economic classification, 2002/03 compared to population census 2001

Source: HESA

What these figures show above all is that no-one really knows the socio-economic
make-up of the population or of HE students in enough detail to make clear claims
about the proportionate differences between small groups or about relatively minor
changes over time. All socio-economic groups appear to be under-represented to some
extent - which clearly cannot be so. The key question is whether there is any bias in
the non-responses. If, for example, the non-responses are more common among the
prestigious occupational groups (as evidence from surveys would generally suggest)
then this could explain the apparent under-representation of these groups in HE. We
just do not know. There is some indication that both higher- and lower-managerial

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