**Abstract**

The dominant discourse in higher education which rather simplistically equates hard work with success, serves to privilege the already privileged, with their background in particular forms of knowledge and learning. The assumption that success in higher education could largely be explained through meritocracy based on hard work and bright minds only favors middle class students, globally, because of their privilege. This is because students' enrollment in universities is linked to benefitting from powerful knowledge, but this is likely to be merged with the acquisition of the knowledge of the powerful, the middle and upper classes. Consequently, students from lower class backgrounds are unlikely to draw on knowledge resources that they bring with them to university. Through empirical qualitative data drawn from discussions of 2nd year science students at a historically white and privileged university, I argue that knowledges outside of the academy, for example, in rural homes could be used as a pathway to access powerful knowledge. I draw on the theoretical lenses of critical realism and social realism to develop an understanding of students' prior experiences. A decolonial gaze is adopted to critique how university space, physical, ideological, and intellectual, could constrain access to powerful knowledge.

**Keywords:** powerful knowledge, access and success, critical realism and decoloniality, higher education
