ABSTRACT
Taken together, the contributions in this collection do a great deal to challenge, or at least question, popular myths about higher education. One such myth is around the inexorable forward march of progress in all things, so that the shift from an 'elite' to a 'mass' system of higher education is seen rather like other major historic advances and taken to signal a mature and civilised democracy, or a society and economy in which talent can be nurtured to the highest level. Institutions can choose to recruit more part-time students, whose profile in terms of age and background can be very different to full-time school leavers. It is likely that the recent collapse of mature student part-time study will have done much to affect the overall composition of the student body in terms of social class. Institutions vary quite widely in what they explicitly offer part-time.
