Responding to today’s new report by Alan Milburn and the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission, Sir Peter Lampl, chairman of the Sutton Trust and the Education Endowment Foundation said:
“Alan Milburn’s latest report confirms the access challenge facing our top universities. Since the Sutton Trust first identified a ‘missing 3000’ students in our thirteen leading universities, there has been a stronger expectation that they will do more to improve the numbers entering from low and middle income backgrounds.
“But this report shows that the numbers overall have not improved across the Russell Group. So it is vital that these universities redouble their efforts to improve access by reaching out to able students in comprehensives and academies, and focusing more resources on such outreach.
“The Sutton Trust is playing its part with 1700 students at summer schools at nine leading universities, and through other programmes such as our successful Pathways to Law programme, offering 400 places a year, and our summer school for teachers. Demand for our programmes is huge – we had 10,000 summer school applications this year alone. But we need a system-wide drive on access to top universities if we are to make greater inroads into the problem. Enabling able students to fulfil their potential goes right to the heart of social mobility, basic fairness and economic efficiency.”
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