This study examines how Swedish students originating from metropolitan areas have used university colleges to access higher education. In the 1970s, as part of a series of reforms to the Swedish higher education system, university colleges were established. One reason being to make higher education more accessible to students outside the metropolitan areas. However, students from metropolitan areas have increasingly enrolled in these institutions over time. Multinomial logistic regression was used to examine the pre-entry attributes of metropolitan students from four enrolment cohorts (1995, 1998, 2001, and 2004) and patterns in their enrolment at university colleges. The results indicate that over time metropolitan students from less advantaged backgrounds have increasingly attended university colleges, particularly those whose qualifications excluded them from entering the more prestigious universities.