Calculating the cost: place, mobility and price in higher education decision-making for students on small islands around the UK

ABSTRACT The decision of whether and where to attend higher education is an inherently geographical decision. Amongst the structural inequalities that determine how decisions about higher education are made are a number of complex socio-spatial factors ranging from proximity of higher education institution to place of residence and availability of transport options, to national and locally-specific expectations of undergraduate mobility and personal relationships of belonging to place. This article situates these multi-layered factors in the particular geographical context of the United Kingdom (UK), and more specifically in the small islands that surround the UK, presenting findings from a multi-sited case study of three island colleges. The article adapts the language of cost and price, commonly used in discussions of social mobility, arguing for the importance of considering place and geographical mobility for higher education as part of the balancing of financial and social risks, benefits and investments that structure higher education decisions. Focusing on three aspects of cost and higher education, – costs of tuition, living expenses and travel expenses – the article asks how place and mobility shape higher education decision-making in the often-ignored context of the small island, and what might be learned from these contexts about the workings of geographies in places with more familiar and therefore more naturalised relationships to higher education.