The recent Australian Centre for Student Equity and Success (ACSES) report on Enabling Programs provides important national evidence about participation, retention, and success outcomes for students entering university through Enabling pathways. The report demonstrates that Enabling programs (more recently referred to as Fee-Free Uni Ready Programs (FFUR)) continue to play a critical role in widening participation, particularly for students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, regional and remote students, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, students with disability, and those who are the first in their family to attend university.
Importantly, the report challenges deficit assumptions about Enabling students. It shows that students entering university through Enabling pathways can achieve strong academic outcomes and, in many cases, perform as well as their peers who entered through traditional pathways. At a time when equity programs are increasingly required to demonstrate measurable outcomes to reach the ambitious tertiary attainment target recommended by the Universities Accord of at least 80% of the working age population by 2050, this evidence matters.
Yet while the report provides a valuable snapshot of participation, retention, and success, it also highlights a broader question: are we measuring the right things?
The challenge is not that the data are wrong. Rather, the data tell only part of the story.
Much of the discussion about Enabling education continues to be framed through metrics such as enrolment numbers, retention rates, and progression into undergraduate study. These measures are important, but they were largely developed for undergraduate (rather than pathways) education and do not always align with the purposes of Enabling programs. Researchers in Enabling education have long argued that withdrawal from an enabling program cannot automatically be interpreted as ‘failure’. For some students, participation itself may be transformational, even if they ultimately decide university is not the right pathway for them. Others may gain confidence, skills, and aspirations that influence future educational or employment choices in ways that are never captured in institutional datasets.
This raises important questions about how ‘success’ is defined. If a student develops the confidence to see themselves as capable of higher education, improves their literacy and study skills, or becomes the first person in their family to engage with university, has the program been unsuccessful simply because they did not complete their Enabling program?
The ACSES report also reveals considerable variation in outcomes across institutions. While it is tempting to interpret this as evidence of stronger or weaker institutional performance, such conclusions risk oversimplifying the complexity of Enabling education. Programs operate within vastly different geographical, social, and institutional contexts. They serve different student populations, offer different curriculum models, and respond to distinct community needs.
National benchmarking studies have shown that Enabling programs share a common commitment to strengths-based and scaffolded learning, but differ in their admissions processes, duration, curriculum design, and delivery modes. These variations are not signs of inconsistency; they reflect the sector’s responsiveness to the diverse realities of the students it serves.
Many of the factors influencing student persistence also sit beyond the university. Financial pressures, housing insecurity, caring responsibilities, health challenges, employment commitments, and geographic isolation all shape students’ capacity to participate in higher education. For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, these challenges are further intertwined with the ongoing impacts of colonisation, systemic inequality, and experiences of cultural exclusion within educational institutions.
Research on Indigenous student success consistently highlights the importance of belonging, cultural safety, Indigenous leadership, and relationship-based support. These elements are often central to students’ experiences of success, yet they are largely invisible within quantitative performance measures. A retention statistic cannot tell us whether a student felt culturally affirmed, developed a stronger sense of identity, or experienced university as a place where they belonged.
Similarly, a growing body of Enabling education research points to outcomes that are difficult to quantify but are nevertheless deeply significant. Students frequently describe Enabling programs as life-changing experiences that transform their confidence, aspirations, academic identity, and sense of possibility. These outcomes may ultimately underpin retention and completion, but they are rarely recognised as outcomes in their own right.
Broadening our understanding of ‘success’
This is not an argument against data. The ACSES report provides essential evidence for understanding the scale, reach, and impact of Enabling education nationally. Rather, it is an argument for broadening how we understand success.
As Australia seeks to increase higher education participation and meet ambitious equity targets, there is a risk that the value of Enabling/ FFUR programs will be judged too narrowly through performance indicators alone. Doing so overlooks the broader social justice mission of Enabling education: creating opportunities for those historically excluded from higher education, fostering belonging and confidence, and expanding people’s capacity to imagine different futures.
The ACSES report tells an important story about access, retention, and success. But the transformational potential of Enabling education lies not only in the students who go on to complete degrees. It is also found in the lives changed, aspirations nurtured, and possibilities opened along the way. Those outcomes matter too – and they deserve to be part of the conversation.
Associate Professor Sarah Hattam, Director Adelaide University Pathways College, Chair National Association of Enabling Educators of Australia (NAEEA)
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