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A growing disparity in higher education progression rates between urban and rural areas must be tackled or the UK government risks handing votes to its opponents on the right, researchers have warned.

Of state school pupils on free school meals, those who live in a rural village are less likely to go on to higher education than their counterparts in urban areas, according to a .

The research, published by the Ruskin Institute for Social Equity (Rise), finds that in 2022-23 the higher education participation rate for people from urban areas was 31 per cent while for those from rural areas it was 19 per cent.

The gap has increased by almost 10 percentage points over the past decade, leading researchers to warn that a ¡°place-based¡± approach to extending higher education opportunities has been wrongly replaced by one increasingly focused on individual university initiatives.

In the report, they recommend an audit of higher education ¡°cold spots¡± to help improve social mobility.?

¡°If the government does not prioritise addressing the gaps between areas in higher education participation, it will not only reduce the chances of higher economic growth and exacerbate inequality,¡± the report says.?

¡°It will also hand votes to its political opponents on the right who prey on communities alienated from educational opportunities, including the chance to go to higher education, which remains highly valued.¡±

While students from rural areas were at a disadvantage overall, the research shows some urban areas performed as poorly when measuring higher education participation.?

The predominantly rural?counties with the lowest participation rates for pupils on free school meal?were Herefordshire (12.2 per cent), Somerset (13.9 per cent), Devon (14.4 per cent), Cumbria (16.5 per cent) and the Isle of Wight (16.9 per cent).

The predominantly urban areas with the lowest rates were South Gloucestershire (12.3 per cent), Knowsley (13.1 per cent), Blackpool (16.2 per cent), Barnsley (16.3 per cent) and West Sussex (16.8).

Westminster topped the charts for the urban area with highest participation rates, at 63.8 per cent, while East Riding of Yorkshire was the best rural area with 24.5 per cent.?

Researchers also note that ¡°worrying patterns of deprivation¡± have materialised in coastal communities in recent years, with South Gloucestershire, Somerset and Devon among those with the lowest higher education participation rates among students from disadvantaged backgrounds.?

Rise found that higher education providers are ¡°heavily concentrated¡± in core cities, with ¡°visibly fewer¡± institutions along the coast.?

Graeme Atherton, the head of Rise and the report¡¯s lead author, said the ¡°aspirations of individuals and communities who live on the coast or in rural areas to progress are being held back¡±.

¡°This will make the government¡¯s missions on opportunity and growth hard to achieve, and a new focus on widening access to higher education is required.¡±

The findings chime with recently published research from the social mobility charity the Sutton Trust that ranks each constituency in England by its prospects for disadvantaged young people, including access to higher education.?

The Opportunity Index found that the top 20 constituencies for opportunity are all in London, and only eight out of the top 50 are outside the capital.

helen.packer@timeshighereducation.com