Yesterday I participated in the Swedish Council for Universities' conference Quality-driven, “a day about how we find the way forward, to broaden recruitment to and promote equal treatment in higher education”. In the closing panel discussion with UHR Director General Karin Röding, Martin Hellström Vice-Chancellor at University West, moderated by Johannes Hylander, it was clear to me: The question of access to higher education for to the is a question we should have already found the answers to, but what we are seeing right now – during the ongoing corona pandemic – is that student and student unions, university management and government officials are committed to the individual. For those who have left high school and who want to apply to academia, for those who have been forced to leave a secure job and all other prospective and current students and doctoral students: it is the individual and everyone's right to higher education that we are fighting for.
One step in this is that study and career guidance needs to be improved. To reach out to different groups about the usefulness of higher education and what paths there are to higher education. In upper secondary schools, all students should receive individual support and the opportunity to discuss their future and their educational opportunities. Study guidance should already be available to offer information and conversations about the possibility of higher education. This is important not only for young people, but if we are to ensure that lifelong learning is promoted. Knowledge and information in this way can be a way to help and encourage people from homes not accustomed to studying to choose higher education and to break gender stereotypical educational patterns.
The fact that barely every second third-year student in high school is aware of the study grant worries me. I believe that we need to break prejudices about the study grant and the fact that some people do not dare to take out loans and instead work alongside full-time studies. Working alongside can take the focus off the education, which in turn risks contributing to mental illness and dropping out – something that I feel is wrong because the Swedish study grant is advantageous. It is certainly not perfect in its current form and can be developed, but fundamentally it is a good system.
There are major differences in study plans between different groups. Men, people born in Sweden, people studying vocational programs and people with low-educated parents are less likely to plan to study at university. The same differences that are found in the official statistics about who studies at university are already found in the future plans of high school students. It should be interests and driving forces that govern, not gender, where you were born, functionality or socio-economic background. I believe that both society and higher education institutions must work hard with both broadened recruitment and broadened participation to encourage all groups to start studying, but also to keep them in studies to prevent dropouts from currently overrepresented groups. The socially skewed recruitment to higher education is a problem.
I dislike categorizing individuals, but what the studies whose results were presented at the conference show is that there are individuals and groups where information about post-secondary studies does not reach and attract. There is a need for both a cultural difference in how we meet young people as well as study information without valuing the individual's background.