Liam Barrett had a choice to make. After finishing his access course at Leeds City College, where was he going to study for his degree? In the end, the 23-year-old made a decision that would have been unthinkable to him just a few months earlier: he rejected offers from several universities and instead opted to stay on at the college.

“The access course could have got me into any university, but it was the experience I had during my access year that made me think this would be the best next step for my education,” he says.

“The class sizes are much smaller, and the relationship between lecturers and students is different. They are almost like friends.

“It feels much smaller and it is a more individualised experience, rather than just being a face in a room.”

The opportunity to stay at home and save money was also a factor, Barrett admits. But it wasn’t the only reason. “For me, staying somewhere local and feeling that little bit more secure has allowed me to do so much more,” he explains. “I thought I was making my world smaller by staying local, but actually it’s quite the opposite.”

College-based higher education - or “HE in FE” as it’s more commonly referred to in a sector known for its fondness for acronyms - is nothing new. But it’s far bigger than most people realise. Around 200 colleges offer higher education programmes - and, according to the most recent statistics, there are more than 150,000 learners on HE courses in colleges, making up 10 per cent of the total number of HE students.

A 2016 report by the Education and Training Foundation (ETF) highlighted college-based higher education as “an increasingly important mechanism for developing the high-level skills needed by the local economy”.

It is that word - “local” - that explains why HE in FE matters, and why it could have a crucial role to play in transforming regional economies across the UK. According to the ETF study, more than 80 per cent of HE students recruited by colleges were from the local area, compared with just 37 per cent of those recruited by universities. For learners attending an FE college, the average travel distance between home and the classroom was 15 miles, compared with 53 miles for those at university.

The financial appeal of staying close to home is obvious. But the longer-term benefits could extend way beyond an individual’s personal finances. If locally focused, college-based higher education enables more graduates to remain in their communities, get jobs there and - eventually - grow a business that can attract the next generation of graduates, then this has the potential to transform regional economies.

The undergraduate population tends to flow towards the major cities that house the most established universities. A 2016 report by the Centre for Cities thinktank found that the biggest net inflow of students was recorded in Leeds (more than 32,000 in 2014-15), followed by Nottingham, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Sheffield.

And, excluding London, the places with the biggest net outflows of students were smaller towns, such as Birkenhead, Wigan, Milton Keynes, Wakefield and Southend.

Where people study, they are more likely to settle. A more recent Centre for Cities report, published in March, looks at population shifts in different English cities. More than half of graduates who studied in Manchester stayed in the city to work afterwards, compared with 31 per cent in Liverpool and 29 per cent in Leeds.

But the same opportunities for young people are not available all over the country. Those who study and work in the area where they grew up tend to be from the most disadvantaged backgrounds, and are often less mobile and less likely to secure graduate work in their local area. And while students who move away are more likely to find highly skilled employment, for those who end up staying closer to home, wider employment opportunities may be effectively closed off.

As Nick Hillman, director of thinktank Hepi, puts it: “There is a portion of the population for whom it is local HE or nothing.” Colleges are therefore, he believes, “an important part of the solution”.

One project intended to address the disparity in terms of access is the Challenge Competition initiative created by the Office for Students. It has awarded £5.6 million in grants to 15 HE institutions that are working to offer study and employment opportunities on learners’ doorsteps. The funding can be used for initiatives such as work experience programmes, internships and additional training to help local students transition into highly skilled employment.

Among the recipients is just one FE institution: Newcastle College. Currently, about 2,000 learners study on a higher education course at the college’s university centre, making it one of the largest college providers of HE in the country. Its status was cemented when it became the first FE institution to be granted full taught-degree awarding powers in 2016 - meaning it now does not have to rely on a university to validate its degrees.

Its student body is overwhelmingly local. According to assistant principal Jon Ridley, fewer than 3 per cent of its HE students come from outside the region. This stands in stark contrast to figures provided by neighbouring universities, at which the proportion of local students ranges from 12 per cent at Durham to 23 per cent at Newcastle and 76 per cent at Teesside.

These institutions find themselves in the region with the lowest progression rate to HE in England. But this is a challenge that Newcastle College doesn’t shy away from. “I see our HE provision as built on two pillars: widening participation and providing for the regional economy,” Ridley says.

About half of the college’s HE students are adult learners - many returning to education to seek a degree that they were unable to obtain previously. Others opt to study to pursue a work promotion or a career change.

That mirrors what research has shown to be the case elsewhere - the cohort recruited by colleges for HE courses differs markedly to that of universities.

According to a report by the Education and Training Foundation from 2017, full-time learners studying at an FE college were significantly more likely to come from the most deprived backgrounds, and almost twice as likely to come from participation “cold spots” as those studying at a university. Colleges were also more likely to recruit part-time learners from these cold spots.

In the 2011 White Paper Students at the heart of the system, the government identified the distinctive character of HE delivered by colleges, saying that they have “particular strengths in reaching out to non-traditional higher education learners, including mature and part-time students”.

John Widdowson, chair of the Mixed Economy Group of colleges specialising in HE, says colleges attract students who would not otherwise be able to access higher education - those from deprived backgrounds and also those with care responsibilities.

“It is those students for whom costs of things like childcare and transport are a real barrier,” he says. “A lot of people also want to maintain a social and family contact.

“A lot of widening participation learners have to be persuaded that they can do it - they are quite attracted sometimes by sub-degree provision, HND and transition level, because it is only two years’ commitment. They can be put off by the [university] student experience.”

Research seems to back up this theory. A report by the Department for Education, Post-18 Choices of Part-time Study, published last month, says that the factors identified by prospective learners as having undermined or prevented them taking up studies included costs such as fees, living expenses, equipment and study-related travel.

Being able to hold down a part-time job while studying is another advantage when staying local, adds Widdowson. “A lot of the students we get in HE here are very clear on why they are doing their course. If they are full-time students, a lot of them keep their part-time job,” he says. “The higher up in level our full-time students go, the more likely they are to have a part-time job. That is likely to do with age, but it also is because they are staying locally.”

Crucially, though, higher education in an FE setting is about more than simply providing access.

Bill Jones, deputy chief executive for curriculum and quality at Luminate Education Group (formerly Leeds City College Group), says higher education is a growing area for Leeds City College. The college has 1,200 higher education students, 60 per cent of whom are from Leeds, with the rest travelling to the city from around the country for its specialist provision. The number of HE students has been on the rise in recent years. The reason, says Jones, is simple.

“We made a decision to offer progression opportunities for people here in Leeds,” he says. “We see ourselves as offering that progression, especially for people who would not otherwise go into HE. That is about social mobility, but also about meeting the needs of the local economy.

“We are investing more into this area. We have very successful level 3 provision, and are able to provide very clear progression.”

Key attractions of college-based provision include smaller class sizes and more individual support for students than universities are generally able to offer, but specialisation is also important. Jones adds: “All of our courses are directly vocationally facing, and employers are heavily involved in the design.

“We have chosen very carefully the courses we want to develop, and we have not gone for the general courses that would be offered by the university. We have stuck to vocational courses.”

The strong focus on local students, he says, is an integral feature of the college’s provision. “We see it as a real success that so many of our students are local, so all the investment stays here. Our graduates also stay in the area - much more so than those of the universities.”

And this is not always by choice. A research review published by the Department for Education in May looks at the reasons why students chose their place of study. “Among those entering FE, provider proximity was a major factor influencing where to study, but this tended to be by default,” the report states. “If someone wants to pursue a particular course, programme or qualification, there is often only one general FE college in an area, so the choice of provider is limited. Location is also an important factor for mature HE students in choosing their provider, but not for young HE students. Mature students are more likely to have other commitments (such as jobs and family), and are less likely to be able and willing to relocate to study.”

The task for colleges, then, is to make a virtue of the fact that they provide on-the-doorstep provision - and, where possible, to persuade budding students of the advantages of studying closer to home and staying in their local area.

If they succeed, the whole area benefits, explains Elena Magrini, an analyst at the Centre for Cities. “One of the key determiners of a city’s economic success is the skills of its residents,” she says. “FE has a crucial role to play in giving residents the skills they need for the world of work - especially those people with few or no qualifications. Sadly, though, it has been all too often overlooked for HE.

“Universities also have an important role to play. But they are much more national or even international in their focus. And so, if we do want to improve the outcomes of people either out of work or in low-skilled work, then there needs to be much more onus on further education.”

Julia Belgutay is deputy FE editor for Tes. She tweets @JBelgutay

This article originally appeared in the 21 June 2019 issue under the headline “Higher purpose”