is a Professor of Higher Education and Head of the Manchester Institute of Education at the University of Manchester. He conducts research into policy and practice in post-compulsory education that explores how economically disadvantaged young people conceptualise, engage with and perform at university. He is particularly interested in how students' cultural and social capital affects their HE experiences.

In the context of a proliferation of post-16 options, the need for substantial individual financial investment in university education, and uncertainties of employment outcomes, this paper explores student agency and structural constraints around career planning and progression into Higher Education (HE). Analysing data collected on behalf of a National Collaborative Outreach Programme (NCOP) hub in England, this research considers the views of students and staff at further education colleges (FECs). It draws on fourteen in-depth interviews with students undertaking qualifications that facilitate university entry, and seven interviews with staff involved in delivering information, advice and guidance (IAG) in some capacity within FECs. The paper explores the similarities and differences in how IAG is perceived, regarding its timing, depth, focus and scope. Students and staff broadly agreed that IAG in their FEC was often too broad, generic and insufficiently tailored to individual needs. In the cost-benefit analysis on university progression, students weighed up individual circumstances, calculating their best option whilst negotiating the structural constraints. Self-sufficiency was a common desire and ambition, and as such, the financial risks of entering university needed to be mitigated by a clear promise of stability in the future.

Presenting the results from a mixed methods case-study, this paper draws together insight from the fields of ‘BME attainment’ and ‘student transition’ to explore how differential levels of degree attainment might be experienced within the context of a higher tariff university in England. Across a five-year period (2010/11–2014/2015) it compares the levels of degree attainment between UK-domiciled White and Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) students in relation to prior attainment, qualification type, and socioeconomic group (POLAR 3). A range of qualitative data then outlines a series of dynamic factors that can, when compounded, serve to constrain BME students’ capability to negotiate their way through very particular university landscapes. These include: academic expectation and preparedness; the pedagogic terrain; pastoral engagement and sense of belonging finance; and, the lived experience of diversity and ‘othering’. The paper argues that attainment gaps should not be viewed in terms of an individual deficit that needs to be ‘fixed’ or ‘filled’. Instead, greater attention needs to be directed toward enhancing the capacity of higher tariff universities to respond positively to the needs of a changing demographic.