Leader: Support, not ambition, is key to participation

The findings of this week's MORI survey of young people's university ambitions deserves to change practices and policies. The survey shows that evangelising summer schools and outreach missions, schemes designed to persuade that university is possible and desirable, are preaching to the converted. Most secondary-school pupils up to 16 years old think they are likely to go to university. If they did go, government targets for participation would be exceeded. Lack of ambition is not why less than half of the 18-year-old population head to college. The question is why 16-year-olds who expect to go to university turn into 18-year-olds who stay away.

There is suspicion that money is part of the problem. Students have traditionally spent several years earning very little in return for a lifetime of good earnings. The present deal - years of working through college as a prelude to starting working life with huge debts - is less attractive. Not much can be done about the loss of earnings that going to university involves, except to ensure that there are properly supported part-time routes through college for people who need them. But if the government wants more full-time students, it will now know that candidates exist in impressive numbers and that its review of student financial support is the key to getting them to university. Grants are back on the agenda, at least for some, as the precondition for renewed expansion.