We’ve all heard the stats about how many working-class students make it to university—usually followed by applause, PowerPoint slides, and a round of institutional back-patting.
But here’s what we almost never talk about:
Where are all the working-class academics?
Not the students. The people teaching, researching, and shaping the culture of our institutions. And perhaps more worryingly: why don't we even know?
The Class Data Black Hole
Leave to Achieve, a recent report by researcher and content creator Dani Payne whose work I’ve followed for a while, digs into this question. Turns out, most universities don’t actually collect data on the class backgrounds of their staff.
That’s right—while other industries like law, media and the civil service have been actively monitoring this for years, higher education hasn’t caught up.
This lack of transparency makes it hard to answer the most basic questions:
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How many university staff come from working-class backgrounds?
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Are their careers progressing at the same pace as others?
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Do they face barriers to pay, promotion or simply being taken seriously?
When it comes to class in academia, it’s not just a blind spot. It’s an active omission.
Academic Careers: Precarity as Standard
Now let’s say you’re from a working-class background and do want to become an academic. What greets you is less a career path and more a revolving door of fixed-term, insecure roles—what’s often framed as "paying your dues" in the early stages of research or teaching.
These jobs used to be stepping stones, but now they’re more like treadmills. Some researchers spend over a decade hopping from one short contract to another, without ever reaching stability.
And let’s be honest: that’s fine if you’ve got parents to fall back on, a mortgage-free home to live in, or family money in the background. But if you’re from a household where you’re the first to go to uni, let alone become a lecturer, this path isn’t just difficult—it’s unsustainable.
The system rewards people who can afford to wait it out. That’s not meritocracy. That’s survival of the wealthiest.
A Degree in Disguise
What’s even more disillusioning is how education promises transformation but often delivers assimilation.
University is often pitched as the big social mobility elevator. But more often than not, working-class students are taught to mimic middle-class behaviours—how to write, present, network—without being given the privileges that come naturally to their peers.
For many years, I conducted outreach in job centres, often meeting recent graduates who had done everything “right”—got the degree, followed the route—and still felt stuck. The most disheartened? Often working-class young people post-university, realising the pathway they were sold was paved with promises but with no real support. This group of young people is where I often saw the fastest decline in mental health over the course of contact.
It begs the question: does education open doors, or just teach you how to knock in the right accent?
The Promise of AI: Not a Fix-All, But a Force for Good
This is where I think technology could help turn the tide—if we use it with purpose.
AI has the potential to act as an equaliser in education and employment. We're already seeing AI tutors that can personalise feedback and support. Imagine if that tech could help bridge gaps in:
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Academic confidence
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Study support outside lecture halls
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Access to professional development and networks
With the right frameworks, AI could bypass some of the traditional gatekeepers. Not to replace human connection—but to level the playing field for those who didn’t grow up with built-in advantage.
Take Alpha School, for example—an innovative AI-native school rethinking personalised learning at scale. It offers a glimpse into what education could look like when it's designed to meet everyone where they are.
It’s not a silver bullet. But it could be the scaffolding that helps more people climb.
Who Gets to Stand at the Front of the Room?
We also need to challenge who gets to lead learning in the first place.
What if universities made space for guest lecturers and visiting professors who’ve forged alternative paths—those who didn’t go the traditional academic route but still bring experience, creativity, and wisdom?
People who’ve built businesses, led community change, created art or tech movements. People whose success came in spite of formal education, not because of it.
As Sir Ken Robinson put it:
“Human communities depend upon a diversity of talent, not a singular conception of ability. And at the heart of the challenge is to reconstitute our sense of ability and intelligence.”
Too often, academia only recognises one kind of intelligence—the kind that fits inside a peer-reviewed journal. But if we want working-class students to feel like they belong, we need to show them more than one way to succeed.
What We're Really Teaching
In its current form, education risks teaching working-class people how to perform middle-classness without ever granting them the safety net that makes it liveable.
The result? More disenchantment. More mental health crises. More young people wondering if the dream was ever real.
It doesn’t have to be this way. But to change it, we need to stop framing social mobility as a personal achievement and start naming it for what it really is: a systemic shift in access, power, and representation.
🔧 So, What Needs Changing?
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Universities must collect and publish class data on staff. If we can measure it, we can fix it.
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AI should be developed as a tool for equity, not just efficiency.
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Guest educators from alternative pathways must be valued and invited in.
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The education system needs to evolve beyond class conformity and start reflecting the real world’s richness and variety.
🗣 Your Voice Matters
Are you a working-class academic—or someone who left academia altogether?
Do you believe AI could genuinely change access and opportunity in education?
Join the conversation below. We need your insights as part of this dialogue.
