The pilot resulted from a proposal from Para West Adult Campus, which is located in one of the most disadvantaged suburbs both within South Australia and nationally.13 The Diploma in University Studies was designed as an entry pathway into the University’s awards for disadvantaged adults without the usual academic requirements for entry to higher education, originally designed to be taken part-time and at a distance. Para West’s usual student cohort consists of the same target student group, educationally disadvantaged adults particularly from low socio-economic backgrounds. The school has had over a decade’s experience providing a successful adult learning environment to such students and the University was interested in whether the pilot would open up a new and effective entry pathway into higher education for larger numbers of them. The two stage pilot was conducted in two years, 2002 and 2003, and occurred in collaboration with the public secondary schooling sector in South Australia on the basis of two consecutive formal agreements with the then Ministers for Education.14