Care leavers 2.5 times more likely to drop out of higher education than their peers

Four times fewer care leavers and others with experience of children's social care enter higher education by age 22, according to new research.

Published by the Centre for Transforming Access and Student Outcomes (TASO) and Rees Centre, University of Oxford, the research finds those with care experience are also more than twice as likely to drop out, compared with their peers in the general population.

The evidence shows the pathways to higher education for young people with experience of children's social care tend to vary depending on the type, and period, of experience with children's social care.

"The fact that so few young people with experience of children's social care attend higher education – and are more likely to drop out when they do – should be a concern and a motivation for action for everyone in the sector,” Omar Khan, CEO at TASO, said.

“We've found promising evidence that there are ways to better support these groups – by recruiting mature learners, those from vocational pathways, and strengthening retention strategies. At TASO, we want to see higher education providers evaluating their interventions to attract and support care experienced students, so we can start to build a picture of what works to benefit these students.”

"We also need closer collaboration between local authorities and higher education providers to ensure they are collectively meeting their duty of support to care leavers, where the state has a corporate parent responsibility. One clear area where more joined-up working could be needed is around accommodation – ensuring that care experienced students have somewhere suitable to stay during term time and the holidays."

In a call to action for the sector, TASO is recommending that higher education providers support the entry and progression of students with experience of children's social care – for example through additional funding in the form of a student premium for care leavers.

For those young people that do progress to higher education, they are more likely to attend higher education later in life, and take a vocational route to get there. These findings point to a need for all higher education providers to accept students from vocational routes, and to set strategies for recruiting mature learners. This call is relevant to all higher education providers, but especially high tariff or more 'prestigious' universities, where care leavers are notably underrepresented.

While care leavers – and those who have ever been in care – have the lowest engagement with higher education by age 22 of any of the care experienced groups for most measures, care leavers have the second highest entry rate at age 18/19 of all five groups with experience of children's social care. One reason for this could be that a higher level of support is made available for this group in the transition from post-16 settings to higher education.

The research has prompted calls for higher education providers to support people who have experienced children's social care by accepting more students from vocational pathways; and working closely with local authorities to ensure students have appropriate accommodation options during both term time and non-term time.

"It is striking but not new to find that very many children and young people who have interacted with children's social care services are also disengaged from education. Yet this study in population data finds that many do go into higher education and of those many have come through vocational routes,” Leon Feinstein, Professor of Education and Children's Social Care and Director of the Rees Centre, said.

"The solution for universities lies not in reducing academic standards, but in designing more differentiated pathways, and responding to the additional needs of this whole group as part of widening participation programmes in universities, and enhanced transitional support by local authorities. The biggest effect on higher education entry and also as an outcome in itself would be achieved by an enhanced further education offer."