The widening access debate: student flows to universities and associated performance indicators

The task of constructing appropriate performance indicators for universities is an important one, particularly in the context of political debates such as that associated with widening access to universities. It is argued in this paper that the proper basis for such performance indicators lies in the construction of an appropriate model of student flows. A suitable notation is developed and there is a discussion of data availability. Then, in turn, the core model and the main performance indicators are presented. This analysis is compared to that of the Higher Education Funding Council for England. Some proposals are made for an ongoing work programme to test the main hypotheses of the paper.