If it really wants to widen access then Oxbridge needs to build more colleges

Last month, Cambridge University announced that it would offer places to 67 “disadvantaged” students whose A-levels were better than expected. In terms of exploiting our country’s human capital, this is excellent: but it is not enough. The university has had no new undergraduate college since Robinson in 1979. Oxford’s last new undergraduate college was St Catherine’s, in 1963.

While it is good to ensure that young people from poor backgrounds can have the lifechanging experience offered by these two elite universities, it does nothing to help the numerous gifted students from more fortunate backgrounds whose A-levels were also better than expected, or who were predicted stellar results and achieved them, but never had an offer in the first place.

Earlier this year, Oxford announced that it would be taking more disadvantaged students, but at the expense of those from better homes, who were in effect to be penalised for their parents’ affluence. Such discrimination cannot go on.

One of Cambridge’s smallest colleges, Corpus Christi (full disclosure: I am an alumnus), has set an example by stating that it will take 10 extra students a year from under-represented backgrounds over the next three years, an expansion of around 12 per cent, and it will provide a bridging

course to help ensure they can thrive in Cambridge’s high-pressure environment. Corpus is not doing this at the expense of better-off applicants; these are extra places, facilitated not least by converting every available space on the college estate into rooms. It points the way towards the real necessity, a wholesale expansion of both Oxford and Cambridge.

Since St Catherine’s opened, the UK population has risen by 13 million, or 20 per cent; since Robinson opened, it has risen by 10 million. There has been no comparable rise in provision of places at our two elite universities, meaning they have become even more “elite”. There are plenty of other excellent universities in Britain, but if Oxford and Cambridge are to fulfil the role in society that they define for themselves, which is very much about widening access, then they must expand, otherwise they, and Britain, will fall behind internationally.

Too many young people with excellent A-levels are being denied an education at Oxbridge that they are more than capable of completing with distinction. That many do not make the grade because of policies of blatant social engineering is distasteful.

Both universities have poured enormous sums into new postgraduate colleges and institutes in recent decades; it is now time that each committed itself to two new undergraduate colleges of at least 500 people each. Otherwise, while both will retain the considerable lustre of history and tradition, equally both will risk losing the glittering prizes of the future, as more and more of our gifted young people take their brains and talents elsewhere.

That many young people with excellent A-levels do not make it to Oxbridge because of policies of blatant social engineering is distasteful