Participation in higher education - and particularly widening participation to students from less-privileged social groups and those who have traditionally not entered HE - has been a major issue since at least the early 1950s. Widening participation has been an active policy of almost all UK governments for over 40 years, but the issue is perhaps reaching an impasse, with numbers at best static and key groups still effectively excluded from higher education. With issues such as student fees and high drop-out rates still political hot potatoes, this book is a survey of the issues behind...