The period between adolescence and adulthood, what Arnett (2004) terms ‘emergent adulthood’, is a key part of the lifecourse. This is when key socio-economic transitions and growing independence occurs. However, this is not just some ‘stage’ during the lifecourse, it is a key period when structural factors and exclusion mechanisms can significantly shape future lifecourse trajectories or pathways (Bynner 2005). This can come in many forms – economically, politically, culturally and socially – and can have a significant bearing on individuals’ participation in civil society. Indeed, as we have seen earlier, it is a critical period in the lifecourse when levels of volunteering significantly decline before beginning to rise again during mid-adulthood.

For some in society the period of ‘emergent adulthood’ is dominated by their participation in higher education (HE). In the UK, approximately 45 per cent of school-leavers enter HE by the age of 20 years, although there is significant variation in these figures by region and country of the UK. The opportunities that are provided while at university, educationally and socially, can be transformative for individuals and have long-lasting implications for their later lives. But participation in HE is also a major contributor to divergent trajectories. Consequently, the inequalities that HE confers between graduates and non-graduates has received considerable attention over the years, not least in terms of the socio-economic advantage that HE can afford.

There have been two recent and important developments to these debates. The first is in terms of the impact of increasing levels of HE participation – the consequences of shifting from what Trow (1973) termed an ‘elite’ era of HE (for the few) to a mass era of HE (for the many). This also recognises the greater heterogeneity in the student body and in the range of universities providing HE. And the second is recognising the social contribution of HE in terms of graduates’ contribution to civil society (as distinct from its economic contribution through graduate earnings and employment opportunities). But at the intersection of these two developments is a very simple paradox: how has the massification of HE coincided with a general decline in civic participation?