This article reports on access to higher education in South Africa nearly
twenty years after the formal demise of apartheid. It presents a description of the
challenges facing South African society and schooling, which impact, on higher
education and on its ability to transform itself from an exclusive system to one
which is more representative of the general population. The study utilizes publicly
available data about the education system as well as publicly available
documentation and interview data about eight South African universities from a
variety of socio-economic and geographic contexts. Using a framework for
analysis derived from the work of social realist Margaret Archer on the interplay
between structure, culture and agency, it considers limitations in the policy
environment as well as the manner in which individuals at the meso level of the
university constrain and enable change to occur.