Raising aspirations has been identified as a key strategy for widening educational participation in lifelong learning policy. This article deconstructs the hegemonic discourse of raising aspirations through Economic and Social Research Council-funded research on men, masculinities and higher educational access and participation.The article examines the ways that men students on access and foundation programmes talk about their aspirations and considers the multiple influences and practices that shape their decisions to participate in education. It is argued that a range of interlinked, and contradictory, masculine identifications are central to understanding the formation of aspirations, which are not fixed but shifting through different kinds of life and learning experiences, orientations and relations. The article suggests that widening participation policy and practice is too narrowly focused on simplistic notions of "raising aspirations," leaving hidden intricate operations of power, privilege and inequality.