Eligibility and self selection : discontinuities in transition to tertiary education in Victoria

Most studies of transition to tertiary education focus on a single outcome variable: expectations of further study, a dichotomous indicator of participation in college and university, or simply years of further education achieved. In this paper, the authors contend that a more complete analysis of the social and personal factors which determine tertiary participation can be gained by regarding transition as a series of discontinuities in the individual's educational history. If an analysis was to commence with a cohort of Year 12 students, indicators of these discontinuities could include completion of Year 12, application to a college or university, receipt of an offer, self-selection at enrolment, and delayed entry. In a recent published study of college and university applicants in Victoria, the authors used administrative and survey data to develop causal models of the decision of successful applicants to enrol either full- or part-time rather than defer or decline. In this paper the administrative data are used to specify a model which includes two transition variables. The variables identify those who received an offer, from a defined cohort of applicants, and those who subsequently took up the offer. This model enables a distinction to be made between factors which affect the students' eligibility to enrol and factors that affect subsequent self-selection into tertiary education. Group and individual inequalities can therefore be assessed in terms of their total effect on transition and their separate effects on eligibility and self-selection.