John O’Leary looks at the key findings of Dr John Jerrim’s report ‘Family background and access to high status universities’, which is being presented at the Sutton Trust Advancing Access and Admissions Summit today.

Students with professional parents are about three times more likely to go to the top public universities in England, Australia and the United States than those from working-class families, according to research published today. At the most selective US private universities, the gap is even wider.

The report, by Dr John Jerrim, of the Institute of Education at the University of London, was commissioned for a Sutton Trust summit on advancing access to leading universities around the world. The two-day meeting will be opened by Dr Vince Cable, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills.

At the summit in London, some 80 academics and university admissions officers from the US, UK and Europe will discuss ways to improve access for low
and middle income students to elite universities. Among those attending are the heads of admissions at Harvard, Yale, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Oxford and Cambridge.

Dr Jerrim reports that while attainment in secondary education accounts for most of the gap in participation at the top universities, more than a quarter of the difference remains unexplained. “This suggests that there are significant numbers of working class children who, even though they have the academic ability to attend, choose to enter a non-selective institution instead,” he says.

 The research compares entry rates at Russell Group universities in England, ‘Group of Eight’ universities in Australia and highly selective universities in the US. At the most selective American private universities, students with professional parents were six times more likely to be admitted than those fromworking-class homes.

 Dr Jerrim found that a smaller proportion of the gap between rich and poor was unexplained in England than in Australia or the US. While 73 per cent of the difference could be attributed to prior attainment in England, the equivalent figure for the leading US private universities was only 48 per cent.

However, the research showed that the social composition of the student body at elite universities was similar in the US and England. The universities that make up the Sutton Trust 13 had rather more students from middle-income families, but the proportion from the poorest homes was well below 10 per cent in both countries.

Sir Peter Lampl, chairman of the Sutton Trust and of the Education Endowment Foundation, said: “Access to elite universities is a real issue across the globe, and we hope that by discussing it at the summit, we can learn from each other on what can work to improve access for bright low and middle income students. This new research confirms that there many able children either not applying or not being admitted to the best universities, and this is true internationally.”

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