It was Tony Blair who set the goal of 50% entering further education which was actually only reached as recently as 2019.
Never really liked the idea as it – covertly perhaps – assumed that education until in your early 20s is what all youngsters should aspire to, whereas many aren’t of an academic bent and would prefer to get their hands dirty on reaching 16-or-so by doing vocational training through apprenticeships, which entirely mistakenly continue to be viewed as subordinate to a university education.
The result being of course that – as others have pointed out – we have a huge number of 20+ year-olds with degrees that count for little in the work marketplace and a chronic shortage of homegrown skilled manual workers.