UK: Universities fail to woo poor students

Top British universities are to step up efforts to 'socially engineer' their intake amid evidence that attempts to attract more applicants from poor families have had limited success, reports The Times. Those involved include Durham, which has announced "urgent" action to raise the proportion of students from "lower social classes".


Others - including Glasgow, Manchester, Sheffield and York - have said that for the first time they will use information on whether an applicant's parents attended university to help them decide whether to offer a place.

Universities have spent millions in attempts to award more places to applicants from state schools and deprived backgrounds. However, documents released under the Freedom of Information Act show some of these schemes are faltering. Leading universities have been under heavy pressure from Labour to curb the dominance of independent schools, which take more than 40% of places at Oxford and Cambridge universities despite educating just 7% of the population.
Full report on The Times site