England’s leading universities have made “incredibly slow” progress in widening access to students from disadvantaged backgrounds, despite spending hundreds of millions of pounds on schemes designed to widen access to their undergraduate courses. A new report by the independent thinktank Reform ranks 29 “high-tariff” universities for their progress in accepting disadvantaged students. “Overall, English universities have increased access for disadvantaged students – but this progress is skewed towards lower- and middle-tier universities,” said Emilie Sundorph, the report’s lead author. “Among the top universities, progress is incredibly slow. “We’ve actually seen a narrowing of inequality at universities’ admissions,” Ebdon said.

Source: The Guardian September 05, 2017 10:00 UTC