Slow progress

Universities are unlikely to meet the prime minister’s target.

David Cameron has called on universities to double the proportion of students they take from under-represented backgrounds between 2009 and 2020. On 31 January he highlighted how few black students have gained entry to the University of Oxford. Now figures published on 4 February by the Higher Education Statistics Agency show that progress has also been slow at admitting students from poor neighbourhoods that send few youngsters to university.

Overall 12 per cent of undergraduates came from down-at-heel areas in 2014-15, up from 10 per cent in 2009-10. The data cover England, Wales and Northern Ireland, but not Scotland. British universities have thus recruited 15 per cent more students from gritty neighbourhoods than they did five years ago; in another five years, the figure is supposed to be 100 per cent.