The intersection between ethnicity, disadvantage, and social mobility via higher education is complex
David Kernohan is Deputy Editor of Wonkhe
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There’s a suggestion doing the rounds that it is easier for non-white young people to get into university than their white peers.
The idea goes something like this: 30 per cent of all white 18 year olds got into university in the 2025 cycle, compared to 51 per cent of Asian students, 48 per cent of black students (and 61 per cent of Chinese students). Therefore loads of deserving white 18 year olds are being turned away by awful, woke, universities… or something.
To start off with, universities can only admit people who apply to them.
Just under 40 per cent of white 18 year olds from England apply to university, and just over 87 per cent of the ones that do get a place. In comparison, while just over 68 per cent of black English 18 year olds apply to university, the same proportion that do (87 per cent) get a place.
What we are seeing, in other words, isn’t universities choosing to recruit black students – it is black students being more interested in applying to university than white students.
Even so, it remains the case that the overwhelming majority of English domiciled 18 year old students are white – even if that majority isn’t as massive as raw demographics may suggest. White English 18 year olds represent 60 per cent of applicants, 61 per cent of accepted applicants – but 73 per cent of the wider population.
A different data source (the national pupil database ethnicity records, as opposed to applicant self-declaration via UCAS)offers similar but not identical results, and allows us to look at what is happening by tariff group. What’s interesting here is that for higher tariff providers, the proportion of white 18 year olds from England is much higher (67 per cent), and is beginning to approach the proportion within the wider population.
Sadly, we don’t get application behavior for this split of ethnicity and tariff group in the UCAS release – what I’d expect to see is that white pupils are also much more likely to apply to selective universities. Much of the coverage of this issue in the mainstream press has focused on interventions designed to encourage more non-white applicants to consider very selective universities: based on application patterns we can see why high tariff providers may be concerned that they are less ethnically diverse than other parts of the sector.
What we do get to see, and may partially explain this phenomenon, is that black, Asian, and mixed race applicants either predicted or achieving good A level results (say AAA or above) have lower entry rates than similarly qualified white applicants. For black applicants, it is notable that if you have 12 points (around BBB) you are more likely to go to university than your black peers with better grades.
In each case, the size of the dot represents the number of applicants in question.
In other words, there is a small and underrecruited cohort of very well qualified applicants who are not placed at university. And it is these students that high tariff providers are putting in place measures to improve recruitment among. Which honestly is probably driven by market logic (why would you not want to recruit more applicants with good A levels?), with the pleasing side effect that it also drives diversity and inclusion.
The other big takeaway here is the low application rate among white 18 year olds – something that applies similarly to 18 year olds from disadvantaged backgrounds of all ethnicities (people from nearly all minoritised ethnic groups are proportionally more likely to live in disadvantaged areas than White British people). As Anne-Marie Canning noted recently, the issue may well be one of trust, and one prominent underlying factor is debt aversion.
These are difficult questions, backed by a huge and ongoing body of research. There may be more (numerically) white British 18 year olds in disadvantaged areas, but it is hard not to conclude it is the disadvantage that causes the problems.
“based on application patterns we can see why high tariff providers may be concerned that they are less ethnically diverse than other parts of the sector”
Here you have one of the problems. The focus is on comparison with “all students” rather than with “the age group (including non-students)”. Compared to the age group, Whites are underrepresented at high tariff universities whereas compared to the student group, they are overrepresented. It is only the latter that you ever hear about and this is usually simplified to “overrepresented” without saying what the comparison is made with.
Similar for the “awarding gap”, a back of the envelope calculation suggests this goes away if you compare students who receive a “good” degree to the whole age group rather than the student group.
I cannot help but think that the choice of comparison group is made deliberately because it fits the narrative.
“In other words, there is a small and underrecruited cohort of very well qualified applicants who are not placed at university. And it is these students that high tariff providers are putting in place measures to improve recruitment among.”
You provide no evidence for this last sentence, my experience is different.
“There may be more (numerically) white British 18 year olds in disadvantaged areas, but it is hard not to conclude it is the disadvantage that causes the problems.”
This is because you do not want to draw the conclusion that it is racial (or even that it might be racial).
The raw entry rate data is staggering. When I first saw it, I could hardly believe it since it is so contrary to the narrative we are constantly told. I bet that if you asked an arbitrary academic or administrator at a university to match the ethnicities (Chinese, Asian, Black, White) and the percentages (61,51,48,30), almost none of them would get it correct. This would include most people involved in admissions and DEI.
Compare your response in the above article to the white working class students issue to your non-response to for example the following article:
https://wonkhe.com/blogs/its-not-just-the-curriculum-that-tells-students-of-colour-this-place-wasnt-built-for-them/
That mentions the awarding gap, the percentage of Black professors, the staff team of an SU or a university wellbeing service being White. You didn’t write an article saying that this is not actually racial and that there are other reasons for these things.
The narrative only ever goes one way: any (seeming) disadvantage for White people is non-racial, any (seeming) disadvantage for non-White people is racial.
As an example outside of higher education, the report which came out today on leadership in policing:
https://www.college.police.uk/police-leadership-commission/police-leadership-commission-report
Paragraph 119 mentions
“20 per cent of black and minority ethnic respondents, 16 per cent of female respondents, 21 per cent of respondents with a disability and between 18 per cent and 21 per cent of LGBTQ respondents reported experiencing discrimination within their organisation in the past year”
How many men reported being discriminated against? How many White people mentioned being discriminated against? We are not told. The narrative only ever goes one way.
I think you meant to say: “The narrative only ever goes one way: any (seeming) disadvantage for White people is non-racial, any (seeming) advantage for non-White people is racial.”
Which would be, spot on. Wonkhe out of touch as ever.
Pehaps you should take this article and rework it for the Guardian. Something like this:
There’s a suggestion doing the rounds that it is easier for privately educated young people to get into Oxbridge than their state-educated peers.
The idea goes something like this: 4 per cent of all privately educated 18 year olds got offers from Oxbridge in the 2025 cycle, compared to 1.2 per cent of state-educated students. Therefore loads of deserving state-educated 18 year olds are being turned away by awful, Tory-voting Oxbridge dons… or something.
To start off with, Oxbridge can only admit people who apply to them and 23% of state applicants receive an offer compared to 25% of privately educated applicants.
What we are seeing, in other words, isn’t Oxbridge choosing to recruit privately educated students – it is privately students being more interested in applying to Oxbridge than state-educated students.