Response to OFFA access report

Responding to the OFFA report on the outcomes of access agreement monitoring, Sir Peter Lampl, Founder and Chairman of the Sutton Trust, said:

“Offa’s latest report highlights the continuing access challenges at our most selective universities. Despite £725 million being spent on access initiatives, progress is still slow on access and retention for low and moderate income students. At the Sutton Trust, we are working with OFFA to get better evidence on the most effective access interventions.

“It is even more worrying that there is no sign of improvement in access for mature and part-time learners. Prof Ebdon rightly says this is a grave concern. Mature and part-time study is a huge engine for social mobility. We need to halt the decline in the numbers of these students as a matter of urgency.”

NOTES TO EDITORS

1. The Sutton Trust is a foundation set up in 1997, dedicated to improving social mobility through education. It has published over 180 research studies and funded and evaluated programmes that have helped hundreds of thousands of young people of all ages, from early years through to access to the professions.
2. The Sutton Trust’s summer schools are free residential courses for Year 12 students from UK state schools. They give teenagers the opportunity to experience life at a leading university, gain an insight into living conditions and get a flavour of what their first-year as an undergraduate student will be like. In 2017, there were over 2,000 places available at 12 top universities (including Cambridge, UCL, Imperial and Durham). Over 20,000 young people have attended a Sutton Trust summer school since 1997.
3. The Sutton Trust is partnering with OFFA on a major programme of work to help universities better evaluate the impact of their outreach and access work. More on this here.

MEDIA COVERAGE

Poorer students increasingly more likely to drop out of university early, figures show (The Independent)

‘Slow progress’ on widening access to elite English universities (Times Higher Education)