Oxford colleges that fail to admit one black student

OXFORD colleges have been branded ‘fiefdoms of entrenched privilege’ after figures showed almost a third failed to admit a single black British A-level student in a year.

Data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act revealed ten out of the 32 Oxford colleges failed to admit any such pupil in 2015 – and those that did mostly gave places to one or two.

Oriel College has offered only one place to a black British A-level student over the past six years, despite a drive by university authorities to boost diversity. And only three Oxford colleges were able to boast that they made offers to students of this background every year.

The university has set up a number of outreach projects aimed at encouraging black pupils to apply, in response to government diversity requirements. But Tottenham Labour MP David Lammy, who obtained the figures, said: ‘Whilst some individual colleges and tutors are taking steps to improve access, in reality many Oxbridge colleges are still fiefdoms of entrenched privilege, the last bastions of the old school tie, with admission dependent on highly subjective interviews and the whims of academics recruiting in their own image.’ Similar figures from Cambridge also show six colleges failed to admit any black British A-level students in 2015. Between 2010 and 2015, only 1 per cent of offers were made to black students at Cambridge, and on average a quarter of colleges failed each year to make such offers.

Only a quarter of colleges made offers to black applicants in each of these years. Pakistani students were also scarce in admissions, with less than 1 per cent of offers at Cambridge going to this group.

In 2015, 91 black British A-level students were admitted to the two universities – 42 to Oxford, and 49 to Cambridge. Figures also show four- fifths of students accepted at Oxbridge between 2010 and 2015 had parents with top professional and managerial jobs. The proportion of places going to families in the top two social income groups rose from 79 per cent to 81 per cent between 2010 and 2015.

Yesterday, the two universities said students from black and minority ethnic backgrounds (BME) make up a high proportion of entrants – but this includes students from statistically highachieving groups – for example Chinese. At Cambridge, they made up 21.8 per cent in 2016 and at Oxford 15.9 per cent.

Oxford said some colleges not making offers to black students were permanent private halls, which admit low numbers. Cambridge said acceptances from black British students has risen 30 per cent over the past decade – with 39 accepted in 2016.

Oxford stressed: ‘The number of offers we make to black students has more than doubled since 2010.’ Cambridge insisted: ‘We aim to widen participation further whilst maintaining high academic standards. Our admissions decisions are based on academic considerations alone.’