A MORE UNIVERSAL EDUCATION
A HIGHER PROPORTION OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS THAN EVER BEFORE COME FROM STATE SCHOOLS
CHILDREN educated state schools make up a higher proportion of university students than ever before, official figures have revealed.
Findings from the Higher Education Statistics Agency show that in 2016/17, nine in every ten students under the age of 21 who had started a degree course in the UK came from state schools or colleges. That’s the highest proportion ever recorded, and means only one first-year undergraduate in ten comes from a private school. Modern records showing the proportion of undergraduates from each type of school date back to 1998/99, when 85 per cent of first-year students were from state schools. The proportion has been rising, if slowly, ever since. By 2007/08 some 88 per cent of students who started their degrees came from state schools.
The total number of students starting full-time university courses has fluctuated over the years.
In particular, it fell to just 972,255 in 2012/13, the year tuition fees rose to a maximum of £9,000 a year.
Since then it has risen and stood at 1.01 million in 2016/17.
Of those, 912,137 were from state schools.
The data also shows more new students than ever before come from what are known as “lowparticipation neighbourhoods”. These are places where few students have tended to go on to higher education in the past.
In 2016/17, a record 11.4 per cent of all students starting their first degrees came from low participation neighbourhoods.
That’s up from just 9.6 per cent in 2009/10.
Education secretary Damian Hinds said: “I am encouraged to see a record proportion of university entrants now coming from state schools and disadvantaged areas.
“Many universities are already doing brilliant work to ensure more young people go on to higher education, and I would encourage this best practice to be shared across the sector. “Of course there is still more to do. That is why we have introduced major reforms through the Higher Education and Research Act, including the Transparency Duty which will require all universities to publish data broken down by gender, ethnicity and socioeconomic background, shining a light on institutions that need to do more to widen access.”