Graduate views on access to higher education: is it really a case of pulling up the ladder?

Using as a starting point the recent work of Mountford-Zimdars, Jones, Sullivan and Heath (2013), we analyse attitudes towards expanding HE opportunities in the UK. We propose that the approach of Mountford-Zimdars et al. is flawed not only in its adoption of a multivariate logistic regression but in its interpretation of results. We make a number of adaptations, chief among them the use of an ordered probit approach and the addition of a time dimension to test for changes in attitudes between 2000 and 2010. We find attitudes towards HE expansion have intensified during the decade 2000-2010, but we uncover no evidence that this is due to graduates wanting to ‘pull up the ladder’, as suggested by Mountford-Zimdars et al. We argue that evidence of a widespread desire to reduce access to HE can most likely be explained by social congestion theory, internal institutional disaffection and rising tuition fees.