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Access to university

July 2025

  • Schoolchildren walking

    Majority of inner London pupils on free meals going to university, data shows

    Inner-city FSM pupils in capital also twice as likely to gain places at selective universities as counterparts elsewhere

October 2024

  • A freshers' week at the University of Manchester

    Alarm at first fall in disadvantaged students in England reaching university

    Proportion of students eligible for free school meals at 15 who progress to higher education falls from 29.2% to 29%

September 2024

  • Tourists on a punt trip near Kings College in Cambridge.

    Piling on privilege in higher education

    Letters: Bernie Evans and Prof Colin Richards respond to a proposal for leading universities to limit their intake of pupils from private schools to 10%

April 2024

  • The Imperial College London team on University Challenge

    A challenge to the BBC’s Oxbridge bias

    Letter: This year the BBC allowed nine Oxbridge colleges out of a total of 28 to compete in University Challenge, and still they did not win, writes Frank Coffield

March 2024

  • Helen Mountfield, principal of Mansfield College, Oxford.

    Oxbridge must help pupils from state schools succeed, college head says

    Helen Mountfield, principal of Mansfield College, Oxford, hopes to raise £100m to help improve outcomes

February 2023

  • A university graduate wearing a mortarboard hat looks up at a glass-ceilinged office

    How to dislodge the posh clique that rules Britain

    Letters: Simon Bull asks for discrimination against the state-educated to be outlawed, and other readers write on Oxbridge and Eton domination

January 2023

  • Black, female university graduates throw mortar-board hats in the air

    Elite power in Britain
    Elite universities aren’t hotbeds of ‘wokery’: our research shows they’re rife with racism and classism

    Kalwant Bhopal and Martin Myers
    In both the US and the UK, students described being told that they were beneficiaries of affirmative action, write authors Kalwant Bhopal and Martin Myers

December 2022

  • Children play in the art room at College Green nursery school

    UK scheme supporting Black students to reach Oxbridge expands to nursery schools

  • Beverly Sand

    Other lives
    Beverly Sand obituary

August 2022

  • Simon Jenkins

    Liz Truss’s Oxbridge proposal is the latest vacuous idea from a slapstick Tory race

    Simon Jenkins
    The ill-thought-out ideas issuing from Britain’s prime ministerial candidates are a cause for alarm, says Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins

June 2022

  • Michael Rosen

    Letter from a curious parent
    Dear Nadhim Zahawi, do you think curbs on university entrance will be levelling up?

    Michael Rosen
    Even the DfE’s own assessment has found restricting access to loans would shut out ethnic minority students

May 2022

  • Kings College, Cambridge, viewed from the backs.

    Nadhim Zahawi’s Oxbridge claim is an insult to state school students

    Letters: Michael Pyke takes issue with Nadhim Zahawi’s argument that it is up to state schools to improve access to elite universities. Plus letters from Richard Duckworth, Gerald Sandison and Nigel Gann
  • Nadhim Zahawi answers questions from year 5 pupils after reading a commemorative platinum jubilee book during a visit to Manor Park primary school in Sutton, south London

    Zahawi rejects idea Oxbridge should ‘tilt system’ to accept more state pupils

    Education secretary says admissions should be based on merit and focus should be on improving schools
  • Teenagers in school uniforms in a drama class

    The threat facing humanities and the arts

    Letters: Drama in schools gives students the opportunity to explore a wide range of issues, says Catherine Griffin, while Sue Jackson points to the favouring of Stem subjects at the expense of humanities in universities

November 2021

  • Trinity College, Cambridge.

    England’s most prestigious universities failing to boost social mobility, IFS finds

    Research comes as government details measures that compel universities to do more to help graduates

May 2021

  • Jane Struthers

    Other lives
    Jane Struthers obituary

    Other lives: Former director of admissions at Oxford University who believed passionately in broadening access to Oxbridge

April 2021

  • Student doing homework

    Social mobility study to assess lockdown effect on teenagers in England

    Academics will follow progress of 10,000 poorer students affected by the Covid-19 pandemic

March 2021

  • Sherrie Smith photographed at her home.

    'People brand you': UK universities sign pledge to fight hate against Gypsies, Travellers and Roma

  • Sophie Pender next to white door with lock

    A Bullingdon in reverse: how working-class student club is taking on elitism

November 2020

  • Rombelong Chrissie (002)

    'I didn't feel I fitted in': why Gypsies, Roma and Travellers don't go to university

    A new tutoring project is ensuring students from Gypsy, Roma and Traveller backgrounds don’t drift away from education during the pandemic
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