Poorer students with good A-level grades are significantly more likely to opt for less prestigious universities than those with similar results from more advantaged backgrounds. Successive governments have spent heavily to encourage disadvantaged students to go to university. There has been speculation that poorer students might tend to pick the closest university to home to save money. Take London, for example, the rich kids will go to the Russell Group, they’ll go to UCL, and the poorer kids will go to South Bank. Geography doesn’t seem to be the driver of mismatch – the poorer students are still going to lower-quality universities.”Wyness said this suggested poorer students would benefit from more outreach work from high-ranking universities.

Source: The Guardian January 26, 2020 07:18 UTC