Aspiration has come to play a central role in the British government's approach to educational underachievement. This article revisits research conducted in the 1970s by Paul Corrigan and Paul Willis to examine the impact of neo-liberalism on the school life of young teenagers. The behaviours of working-class children as described by Corrigan and Willis have become increasingly regarded as problematical by policymakers and school leaders. This article discusses the impact of the measures to enhance 'student aspiration' by using quality assurance measures such as benchmarking. The article explores how teenagers now live much more abject and precarious lives than the teenagers who Willis and Corrigan investigated. The conclusion reached is that, in an education context, abjection is imposed on those people who do not fit into the regulatory ideal of achievement via aspiration. The mechanisms that help to bring about this precarious life are identified with reference to Foucault, Kristeva, Agamben and Butler. Educational research into leadership, school improvement and school effectiveness is said to have been complicit in the facilitation of neo-liberal practice into school life, and effective schools are schools that are effective in achieving neo-liberal objectives.