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The Big Question: Why are fewer students from poor backgrounds going to university?

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Why is this an issue now? This week official figures revealed that the proportion of state-school pupils at university has fallen to its lowest level for three years. The proportion of working-class students has also dropped, as has the number of young people from the most deprived neighbourhoods. Ministers described the figures as disappointing. The drop suggests that the Government's drive to widen access to higher education has stalled, despite costing ?300m.


The figures, from the Higher Education Statistics Agency, show that 86.7 per cent of university places were taken by state-school pupils in 2004/05, a drop of 0.1 percentage points on the previous year and 0.5 percentage points down on 2002/03's figure. About 93 per cent of young people are educated at state schools.

Surely universities today are full of poorer students' Click here to read more.
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