Increasing and widening participation in the market: system differentiation at the institutional/sectoral level

The English sector is characterised by an expanding and increasingly differentiated set of higher education providers (HEPs) and an ever-more diverse student body. As a consequence, HEPs are as differentiated in their widening participation (WP) approaches as they are in every other aspect of the business of HE, and this has led to tensions between why and how they should go about the business of WP. Are HEPs driven by the desire to enhance social justice or merely responding to regulatory pressure? This chapter discusses how changing market regulatory regimes have interreacted with, and often conflicted with, institutional missions as they try to respond to the dual policy imperatives discussed in earlier chapters: the economic, human capital expansionary dynamic and the desire to enhance social justice through access to the HE system.