Extant between 2004 and 2011, Aimhigher was the UK government's flagship national initiative for widening participation to higher education for young people from disadvantaged social groups, with costs approaching 1 billion British Pounds. Its demise was predicated on a perceived lack of progress and the absence of compelling evaluative research. This paper argues that this "lack of progress" was at least partly due to a confusion in the implementation of the policy aim leading, inter alia, to the late adoption of a poor outcome measure that underestimated improvements in participation from the target groups and focused on the wrong stage of entry to higher education. (Contains 4 tables and 1 figure.)