The white working-class and higher education: reasons for disenfranchisement
Polly Wilson explores the reasons behind disproportionately low levels of university admissions among underprivileged sectors of the white working-class.
Photo by Mwesigwa Joel
The University of Bradford’s decision to implement a scholarship targeted at white working-class males exposes an unpalatable barrier to education in the United Kingdom. The scholarship, announced in December 2023, subsidises living costs of up to £400 monthly for four white male students from working-class backgrounds.
It is an uncomfortable fact that young men from white working-class communities have disproportionately low rates of engagement in higher education, with this category making up a mere 1.7% of the University of Bradford’s student body. This statistic is reflected nationally, with only 16% of white working-class pupils starting higher education in 2018 - the lowest rate of any ethnic group in the United Kingdom. This is further mirrored lower down in the education system, where white males on ‘Free School Meals’ consistently underperform not only their wealthier but also ethnically diverse counterparts.
“Their exclusion has become both racialised and politicised: the right exploits their deprivation to peddle inflammatory racist rhetoric and the left fail to effectively target them with access schemes for fear of emboldening the former’s stance.”
The underperformance of the white working-class in higher education is not, as is often claimed, symptomatic of their ‘ignored’ status. On the contrary, their deprivation is hyper-prevalent in the public consciousness. Theresa May highlighted the ‘burning injustice’ of this under-representation in 2016, while a 2021 government committee report condemning the ‘decades of neglect’ working-class communities have experienced was evocatively named ‘The Forgotten’. At the extremities of the political system, EDL founder Tommy Robinson popularised an image of the white working-class as excluded from educational opportunities due to high immigration levels.
However, by emphasising the deprivation of the white working-class, the government has paradoxically reinforced this paradigm. Their exclusion has become both racialised and politicised: the right exploits their deprivation to peddle inflammatory racist rhetoric and the left fail to effectively target them with access schemes for fear of emboldening the former’s stance. Ultimately, it is the most underprivileged sections of the white working-class who lose out.
This was evident in 2019, when prestigious private schools Dulwich College and Winchester College rejected a donor’s offer to introduce scholarships targeting white working-class pupils. Indeed, within the paradigm of ‘restorative justice’ and widening access schemes, the white working-class has become a complex and sensitive issue which often results in their complete exclusion. This makes the University of Bradford’s scheme not only brave, but controversial. There remains something uncomfortable about reinforcing the social capital of the traditionally empowered demographic of the white male. While this group fails to experience the discrimination and prejudice faced by ethnic minorities, their deprivation is reinforced by a lack of investment in dismantling socio-economic barriers to higher education. Educational and political institutions are hesitant to offer specific financial assistance to white males for fear of affirming far-right fantasies of a resource-hoarding immigrant population or validating libertarian criticism that ‘woke’ affirmative action for ethnic minorities is unjust and unproductive.
It is not the case that there have been no efforts to improve access for white working-class students; by contrast, there have been a plethora of initiatives across universities to enfranchise deprived communities which make no ethnic distinction of eligibility. But these schemes fail to address the cultural and socio-economic factors behind the marginalisation of white working-class students. While their non-white counterparts receive support through mentoring programmes which are targeted at breaking down specific barriers to higher education, white working-class students are often only provided with financial aid.
“The white working-class male experiences classism in its purest form since he represents the council-housed and violent ‘chav’. The continued use of this term, despite its pejorative nature, encapsulates the powerful prejudice against the white working-class in this country.”
Needless to say, classism also plays an enormous role in this exclusion. While ethnic minorities face impregnable barriers of discrimination, from disproportionate police interactions to micro-aggressions, their skin colour prefaces their class status. In the eyes of the general population, ‘non-white’ is the only social category ethnic minorities fit into. There is no conception of a ‘middle-class Muslim’ or ‘working-class Caribbean person’ because we problematically view ethnic minorities as a monolith defined by race, not class. If you are white and poor, prejudice towards you is formulated from a number of class indicators. If you are non-white, while your household income may denote you as a member of the working-class, prejudice towards you will be targeted at your ethnic origins. This creates a unique barrier in accessing higher education for the white working-class. The white working-class male experiences classism in its purest form since he represents the council-housed and violent ‘chav’. The continued use of this term, despite its pejorative nature, encapsulates the powerful prejudice against the white working-class in this country.
Such terms reflect the lack of social mobility especially experienced by the white working-class. Since sizable, ethnically diverse communities have only developed in the last century, their lack of established roots here counterintuitively allows for higher rates of social mobility. Despite the racial discrimination they face, ethnic minorities are, to some extent, able to circumvent the rigid structures of social class in this country. Immigrant parents and communities attach a high level of importance to education, often encouraging their children to pursue socially-respected degrees in medicine or law. Their relatively recent arrival means they have an opportunity to shape a new future for their descendants. By contrast, social mobility for white working-class communities with established roots here has become an almost insurmountable challenge. For the white working-class, sometimes with a long-established family profession, their exclusion from affluent society is so entrenched that attempts to subvert it are more infrequent, and perceived with ambivalence within their own communities.
The Education Committee’s report ‘The Forgotten’ also highlighted the lack of ‘social capital’ (such as the absence of community organisations and youth groups) as a leading reason for the disparity between higher education admissions. Such factors become evident when examining ethnic minority communities in comparison to their white counterparts. Religious institutions such as temples and mosques are central to many immigrant communities and often double up as cultural and educational centres. These spaces provide a sense of collective empowerment that has no equivalent in white working-class areas. But any secular nature of the white working-class is not the reason for their disenfranchisement. Rather, after years of austerity, community centres have failed to succeed in a similar vein to grassroots religious institutions that are not only more prevalent in immigrant communities but often receive substantial contributions from them.
The government report further recommends that, in order to facilitate higher university admissions for white working-class pupils, ‘contested views’ about ‘white privilege’ should not be taught. It is ironic that the government responsible for the disenfranchisement of such students should deter any critical examination of white privilege. The mosaic of oppression consists of a plethora of discriminations and prejudices. Attempting to rank them creates a fruitless ‘oppression Olympics’ which denies the pervasive barriers ethnic minority students face in accessing higher education. Rather, the government must stop engaging in inflammatory and racialised rhetoric which scapegoats ethnic minorities for the educational deprivation of the indigenous working class. Instead, they must, along with universities, continue to target the specific challenges working-class communities face and create environments which reject discrimination in all its forms. For this, the University of Bradford should be applauded.