University Admissions: Equality

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Thursday 7th June 2018 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Deech]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to promote equality of opportunity in university admissions.

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest in that I was once chair of admissions at Oxford, and I took Oxford and Cambridge college entrance exams nine times before I got a place. The subject is topical because there was a focus on Oxford University a few days ago, but it has much wider, national implications, and it is wrong to obsess about Oxford and overlook the successes of diversifying student entry throughout the country. The equal entry rate for women, which we now take for granted, is recent and heartening. At all universities, the composition is now 56.7% women, 43.3% men, so men are underrepresented. The outstanding success of some—if not all—ethnic students is remarkable. Ten per cent of all students are Asian, but they form only 7% of the population. The country has much to be proud of, and it needs to be acclaimed, not least in the effort to continue to attract international students.

We are discussing equality of opportunity, not of outcome, which is unattainable and inappropriate. Equality of opportunity to secure a place—albeit competitive—was under question in the discussions about Oxford University. How misguided most of that conversation was. There was no evidence of discrimination, in that the same proportion of BME young people went to Oxford as there are in the UK young population. For the 2017 entry, UK black students had an average offer rate of 16% across all Oxford courses. This compared with a 26% offer rate for UK white students, but there are explanations for this to come.

There should be no concept of overrepresentation or underrepresentation in considering the make-up of university students. We should eschew the notion of proportionate representation. The problem is uneven distribution of BME students among prestige colleges and among subjects. There are colleges in London where white students are in the minority. Is anyone going to complain that there are too many students from one race or religion? The notion of quotas should be alien. Restrictions on the entry of certain groups to higher education is a hallmark of totalitarian regimes.

I want to focus on solutions to the problems that exist. First, I deplore the ill-informed comments made by politicians about Oxford, not only recently but in the past: by Gordon Brown in 2000, about the state-educated applicant Laura Spence; and by David Cameron in 2005 and 2011, about black students. The impressive, expensive outreach work done by top universities is damaged by reporting that gives the impression that they discriminate against black candidates. In no other country would a senior politician speak like this about a top national university, thereby undermining its reputation and all the efforts made to open up access. In fact, nothing gives lecturers more pleasure than discovering and nurturing talent in students from less privileged homes. After all, they want the brightest to share their passion for their academic subjects, and the success of their students is their success, too.

When politicians attack Oxbridge as a bastion of white, upper-class privilege, they reinforce the prejudices of teachers, 40% of whom do not advise pupils to try Oxbridge, who tell their students that they will not get in or that it is not for the likes of them. A period of silence, or at least better information, from senior politicians would be welcome. That is what students say: 1,170 Oxford students, including BME students, have written a public letter stating,

“we fear that all this data release will have achieved is dissuading applications from those we most want to apply”.

Secondly, courses have to adapt to modern demand. Intending students not only get the wrong advice from home and school about where and what to study; they may find that the subject they most want to do in this modern age is the most competitive. National statistics show that BME students are heavily attracted to law, medicine, economics, management and computing: 40% of the black student applications to Oxford were for law and medicine, whereas only 12% of white applicants chose likewise, so of course there will be large-scale disappointment. In these popular courses, the numbers accepted are minuscule compared with, say, classics or modern languages. It is time to switch places from large, less competitive subjects to those that students today want to study. It is understandable that minorities of whatever background have had the propensity to choose a professional, safe career and believe that the luxury of studying history or geography is too risky for them, but the consumerist approach to higher education should not win out. It is about ambition, articulacy and developing critical thinking, regardless of subject. Hopefully, with better advice and the passage of time, BME students will go for a wider range of courses with a better chance of success. State school candidates show the same propensity towards certain subjects as do BME candidates.

Thirdly, the admissions system is confusing and difficult. Poorer students have less information and guidance on choosing and writing personal statements. They may not be able to afford to travel to open days. A-level over-predictions and under-predictions are both damaging. We need more transparency and consistency in the contextualisation of entry requirements. One-to-one assistance with the UCAS forms has been shown to be helpful.

Fourthly, the Government should encourage the Office for Students’ Director of Fair Access and Participation and its new national collaborative outreach programme to support the disabled, consider measures to prevent the higher dropout rate of BME students, engage parents and prepare teachers. Mental health at university is a priority. The office should ensure that every university, working with local providers, has ample and affordable childcare.

Fifthly, the Government need to restore the maintenance grant to help students who want to move away from home to the university of their choice, which may be far away. There is a wealth of evidence that BME students—Indian, Bangladeshi and Pakistani students, especially girls—stay in their home towns to study. This may be for cultural reasons, for fear of new surroundings, or in order to save money. However, if BME students stay in their home towns to study, then of course they are not going to be represented as they should be in Oxford and Cambridge, Durham or St Andrews. If a student borrows the full amount allowed for accommodation away from home, they can end up with a debt of £53,000 after three years, not just £28,000.

To my mind, the biggest obstacle to social mobility and diversity is the inclination—whether willing or for financial reasons—to study at the local university and live at home. This amounts to segregation, exacerbated by the Government’s misguided removal of maintenance grants. It is possible to be educated in a school that is entirely of one ethnicity, live in a similarly homogeneous neighbourhood, stay at home to go to the local university made up of the same people, pair up with someone there, then after graduation stay there too, with lower graduate earnings than might be achieved further afield. Moving long distances to study, at extra expense, is largely the preserve of the better off and the white middle class, who leave home; the rest commute. But upward social mobility is associated with moving to a large city and leaving one’s region of birth. It is pointless challenging our top universities to attract more poor and BME students if they do not have the maintenance grants to live away from home—albeit that in fact there will be more financial support from Oxford and Cambridge, if they get there, than elsewhere.

I grew up in a shabby, war-damaged part of London, now a madly fashionable suburb, and my £300 maintenance grant from the LCC enabled me to live comfortably away from home. The LCC even paid for me to travel home and back to university and threw in something extra for support in the vacations. I wish today’s students could benefit from the same farsighted largesse; instead, immobility is their lot. I imagine that many of us in this Chamber benefited from maintenance grants. I do not want to see the ladder of opportunity pulled up behind us. Let us challenge the Government to restore those life-changing grants.