Our colleges make a significant contribution to widening access to higher education and offer an alternative route to university through articulation. Scottish Funding Council statistics show that in 2020-21, 25.3 per cent of entrants to higher education at colleges came from the 20 per cent most deprived areas of Scotland, and 11,780 students who were enrolled on a first degree course at a university in Scotland in the same year had previously achieved a higher national certificate or higher national diploma qualification at college.