Efforts fail to dissuade disadvantaged drop outs

Students from poorer backgrounds and ethnic minorities remain more likely to leave university before completing their degrees.

Programmes to keep students from ethnic minorities and from poor households enrolled on university courses have largely failed, according to a report published on 19 July by the Social Market Foundation and the UPP Foundation.

The drop-out rate for black students is 10 per cent, compared to 6.9 per cent for the whole student population, according to the report.