The number of young people from disadvantaged areas going to university continues to rise at a stubbornly slow rate, while the gap between women and men enrolling as undergraduates has widened, according to the latest data on UK admissions.
Figures from the Ucas admissions service have shown that the entry rate of school-leavers from the areas of lowest educational attainment inched up from 19.3% in 2017 to 19.7%, a slightly faster rate than among students from better-off areas across England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
In Scotland, using a different measure of deprivation, the gap in participation between the most and least well-off also shrunk but those from the wealthiest areas were still more than three times more likely to attend university.
Clare Marchant, the chief executive of Ucas, said: “While it’s encouraging to see record levels of students from the most disadvantaged areas going to university, the slow progress in closing the gap is disheartening.”
The slow pace came despite government-mandated requirements for universities in England to improve access, particularly among universities with the highest entry standards.
The Ucas data showed that nearly half of all 18-year-olds from the top 20% of areas by educational attainment went to university this autumn, and were more than five times more likely to study at “high-tariff” institutions – such as Oxford or Bristol – than those from the most disadvantaged 20%.
“There is also indication that progress in closing this gap may be slowing, with the reduction seen this year only around a fifth of that seen in recent years,” the Ucas analysis noted.
Much of the growth for students from the most disadvantaged backgrounds came in the “low-tariff” institutions, which require the lowest A-level or equivalent grades for entry, where disadvantaged students were as likely to enter as their more advantaged peers.
Gordon Marsden, the shadow higher education minister, accused the government of only offering “warm words” on improving access for disadvantaged students. “By trebling tuition fees and abolishing maintenance grants for disadvantaged students, the Tories have created an indefensible system in which the poorest students leave university with the most debt,” he said.
But Damian Hinds, the education secretary, said: “I want to see how universities are tackling this issue, and we now require them to publish offer and acceptance rates by gender, ethnicity and social background so the Office for Students can take action if needed to drive improvements in access.”
The government also unveiled Chris Skidmore, the Conservative MP for Kingswood, as the new universities and science minister, after the resignation of Sam Gyimah last week.
While the proportion of men and women entering university continued to rise in the UK overall, women enrolled at a faster rate than men for the fifth year in a row. About 38.3% of 18-year-old women joined an undergraduate course in autumn, compared with 28% of men, putting the gap between them above 10 percentage points.
Ucas said it was only among students from England where there was an increase in the gender gap. For students from Wales the gap remained constant, while in Scotland and Northern Ireland the gap narrowed.
