Universities ‘should be fined for low socioeconomic diversity’

Academic selection should abolished and universities fined for failing to have a diverse student body, according to a report.

The lack of social mobility in the UK is fuelled by university selection, Tim Blackman of Middlesex University argues in a pamphlet published on 20 July by the Higher Education Policy Institute.

“The UK’s higher education system is said to be one of the best in the world, but it is failing to make the contributions to tackling social inequality and poor economic productivity that our universities could make if regulated in a different way”, said Blackman.