Gap between rich and poor accessing top universities widens

The most advantaged students in England were 15 times more likely to get a place at a high-tariff university in 2018 than the most disadvantaged, data from the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service have shown.

According to UCAS’s Patterns of Equality in England report, which was published on 31 January as part of its end-of-cycle data release, this is the first time that the equality gap between the best and worst-off applicants to higher tariff universities has widened year on year.

In 2017, applicants in the most advantaged group were 14.5 times more likely to be accepted by the top third of universities, as defined by the average UCAS points obtained by successful applicants.