‘I don’t want to be in debt for most of my life.’ Pupils in Ipswich explain why the government faces a challenge to persuade more boys to opt for higher education

Michael James is 13 and has the long, lean look of a boy who has just had a growth spurt. His dad’s a lorry driver; Michael has decided he wants to be the first in his family to go to university.

His siblings who have left school are working – one’s a doorman, another is a traffic operator, directing lorries. His brother in the year above wants to be a lorry driver like his dad. Michael wants to get into football management and hopes university will help.

“I think it’s a really good place to go,” he says, brimming with enthusiasm. “It’s high achieving. It makes it easier to get a job. I reckon it will help if I take a degree.” His family, however, are not so sure, he says. “They think it’s a waste of time because it costs a lot of money.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Michael James. Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian

The government is keen to get more boys like Michael into higher education. Universities have been asked to target white boys from working-class backgrounds, who are among the least likely to go to university. The universities minister, Jo Johnson, writing in the Guardian last month said that while almost 40% of young people progress to higher education, the figure for white boys from the most disadvantaged backgrounds is just 10%.

The wider context is a concern among educationists and policymakers about persistent underachievement at school by poorer white children – white boys from disadvantaged backgrounds are the UK’s lowest performing ethnic group. Both the House of Commons education select committee and Sir Michael Wilshaw, the chief inspector of schools in England, have sounded the alarm but the reasons are complex and reversing the trend will be difficult.

It’s PSHE (personal, social and health education) day for year 9 at Chantry academy in Ipswich – a day for thinking about careers and life choices – and Michael and his classmates have been to a presentation by University Campus Suffolk (UCS), an Ipswich-based institution, which is partnered by the universities of East Anglia and Essex.

Universities told to raise numbers of working-class and black students Read more

The school serves the sprawling postwar Chantry estate in the south of town. About half its 700-strong mixed intake attract additional pupil premium funding for children from disadvantaged backgrounds – double the national average – and the vast majority are white British.

The UCS talk has clearly had a powerful impact on the Chantry boys. Of the 12 teenagers who agree to talk to the Guardian, nine express an interest in continuing their studies into higher education. (This may not be a completely representative group however – the headteacher says that the boys interested in going to university were more keen to talk to the Guardian than those who are not.)

Nevertheless, one in the group says he wants to become a policeman and doesn’t see the point of university beforehand. “I don’t really fancy being in debt for most of my life,” says Connor Studd, 16. Another is thinking of joining the army. Only one boy says his parents are graduates; he’s originally from Aberdeen, where his parents studied (free of charge, under the Scottish system). The rest would be the first in their families to go to university.

“I want to study science,” says Connor Macfarlane, 16. “I just feel university could be helpful in finding a job.” Kieran Edwards, 13, feels the same. “I want to further my education to improve my chances of getting a better job. I feel motivated,” he says. It would make him proud to be the first in his family to go on to higher education. The idea of debt doesn’t faze him – he’ll earn enough money to pay it off.

It’s hard to know how deeply held these views are, and how far they’ve been influenced by this morning’s UCS talk. The boys’ enthusiasm is however gratifying for principal Craig D’Cunha, a graduate of the government’s Talented Leaders programme, which places top headteachers in challenging schools. He was hired a year ago after the school was deemed inadequate by Ofsted and put in special measures.

Universities must reach out to the poorest in society – for everybody’s sake | Jo Johnson Read more

First D’Cunha changed its name, from Suffolk New academy to Chantry, then the school moved into a new £14m building, now he’s transforming results. A key reason why white pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds are not going to university is because of academic underachievement. At Chantry, however, the tide is beginning to turn: in 2014 24% of pupils gained five GCSEs at A*-C including English and maths; last year that figure rose to 46%.

D’Cunha and his team are devoted to raising not only attainment, but pupils’ aspirations. The new building, like many of this generation of academies, has a vast airy atrium designed to lift pupils’ sights and open their minds. There’s no school canteen or school hall – there’s a “refectory” and an “auditorium” instead.

But transforming long-held attitudes towards school, work, and higher education, particularly among parents who may not have had a positive experience of education themselves, may prove more difficult, especially with annual university tuition fees of £9,000. “If parents have experienced what benefit going to university and having a degree has, they are more encouraged to send their children to do it,” says D’Cunha, who, like many of his pupils, was the first in his family to go to university.

“If it’s seen as ‘you do three more years and you get £30,000 of debt’, why would you do that?” Government plans to cut maintenance grants for the most disadvantaged students and transform them to loans – piling on further debt – will act as an additional deterrent to the very groups universities have been told to seek out. “There’s even more of a fear factor,” says D’Cunha.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Matthew McGill. Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian

Matthew McGill is 16, with a bouncy quiff and a matching personality. He’d like to be a sports physiotherapist; the message from school is that university will help him with his career, the message from home is more ambivalent. “My family say: ‘You’ll end up with a lifetime of debt.’ It puts me off. I just don’t know,” says Matthew.

His dad works for a printing company. “He would like to see me strive to do my best but he’s always worried about the fact I’m not going to put in enough effort and achieve. If you go and end up in all this debt and then you don’t pass – that’s the worst thing ever.

“I’ve spoken to my uncle about it. He had quite a few friends who went to university. While you’re there, it’s great – while you’re living it. Once they come out of it they wish they never went because of the debt.”

D’Cunha understands these reservations. “This is a very proud community. They are proud of what they do and they strive very hard for their children. Their overriding wish is for their children to do better than them.

“The big barrier is the finance. We can say: ‘You have the potential to go to university’, but the bottom line is you are still asking children and parents in low-income families to take on a substantial debt.” Students won’t have to pay it back until they start making enough money, “but they still don’t like the idea of debt”, says D’Cunha. “That’s the real barrier.”