Listen to this story Members can listen to an AI-generated audio version of this article. 1.0x Audio narration uses an AI-generated voice. 0:00 0:00 Become a member to listen to this article Subscribe Access to HE diplomas were quietly added last week to the list of 16-19 qualifications ministers intend to defund from August 2027. There was no warning, no consultation and no explanation. The decision will affect around 20 per cent of the current funded Access to HE learner base. Participation among younger learners has been rising. Colleges have seen more 18-year-olds turning to Access to HE diplomas, many of them having already tried A Levels or other programmes that did not work for them. Most of them had not given up on university; they had just not found a route that worked until this one. Access to HE diplomas have never competed with A Levels or the incoming V Levels, and the policy case for defunding them rests on a misunderstanding of what they actually do. V Levels are designed to prepare learners for skilled employment, which is a worthwhile goal but an entirely different one. Access diplomas have a singular purpose: preparing learners for academic study at university. A prospective nurse, social worker or teacher enrols knowing exactly where they want to go. The diploma gives them one focused year building the subject knowledge, research skills and academic habits that will carry them through a degree. Treating these as overlapping qualifications is not correct. There is a widening participation argument here that the DfE appears to have given little weight. Access diplomas have long served learners from disadvantaged backgrounds, those with disrupted education, and those for whom a conventional sixth form was never a realistic option. When 16-19 learners are removed from these programmes, the consequences go further than those students alone. Mixed-age cohorts are common across Access to HE provision, and in many colleges, it is that mix that keeps a course running at all. Lose the younger students, and a good number of those programmes close entirely, taking adult learners down with them. Access diplomas feed into the professions facing the most acute shortages: nursing, healthcare, teaching, and social care. Learners who complete them often return to work in the communities they came from. The consequences of cutting this route reach well beyond the individual and into the public services that cannot recruit enough people. The government has stated it wants to raise higher education participation and narrow the social mobility gap. Access diplomas are one of the most direct means the sector has of doing exactly that. They are short, well-regulated by the QAA, recognised by Russell Group universities and carry UCAS points. For many learners, the Advanced Learner Loan used to fund them is written off once they complete a degree, so public money spent here tends to come back many times over. What makes this harder to accept is that the DfE’s own guidance contradicts the decision. The qualification funding approval manual lists Access to HE as protected under exemption type 1 of the qualification reforms moratorium, because it serves a distinct function. The department cannot protect a qualification in one policy document and defund it in another without explaining why. No such explanation has been offered. Alongside the other access validating agencies, I am calling on the Department for Education to reconsider. Gateway Qualifications validates a number of these diplomas, and I make no attempt to hide that. The case for reconsideration is about the learners who rely on this route and deserve better than being swept aside by a process that was never designed with their circumstances in mind. Access to HE is one of the few parts of the 16-19 offer built around the students the rest of the system has consistently got wrong. Removing it without consultation, without evidence and without anything credible in its place closes a door that many of these learners have only recently found the courage to open.