Oxford University cannot take many more working class students because only a limited number meet the academic standards required, its admissions director has said. Mike Nicholson warned there was a "finite pool" of deprived sixth-formers with straight As to fill the university's undergraduate placesHe said the university was committed to increasing the "potential pool of candidates", but insisted it received more applications from private schools in key subject areas such languages and science. Mr Nicholson was speaking as a study criticised elite universities for failing to recruit enough students from poor homes.
The Higher Education Policy Institute said Britain's top institutions were spending millions in grants for the most deprived students - but numbers were failing to increase.
In a controversial move, it said universities should be forced to put money for bursaries into a single fund - allowing it to be diverted to those colleges with the most poor students.
But the recommendation was condemned as a "tax" on top-ranked universities.
Professor Steve Smith, vice-chancellor of Exeter University and chairman of the 1994 Group, said: "A national bursary scheme would effectively be a tax, a forced pooling of tuition fee income, which would be distributed away from the institution to which a student pays his or her fee. It would seriously compromise the direct relationship between a student's fees and their education."
sources: www.telegraph.co.uk
