BAME Attainment in Higher Education: Exploring the Experiences of African Descent Students and the Factors that Impact on their Low Grades at Northampton University

Higher education (HE) has the potential to break intergenerational poverty by bringing about social mobility, thus transforming the lives of many, the wider society and particularly the minority ethnic groups in the UK. In recent years the success rates of different groups of students in HE, has come under considerable scrutiny with gender and ethnicity identified as key attributes for predicting differential achievement of ‘good degrees’. There is a 26% black attainment and this figure has increased year on year, faster than the overall sector. This project will examine the barriers impacting Black student attainment at University of Northampton.