Writing for The Times, Nicola Woolcock reports on the early success of this year’s Sutton Trust US Programme participants.

Almost 40 British teenagers, many from lower-income families, have been awarded £5.5 million in financial aid to attend universities in the United States.

Two thirds of the students are from households earning less than £25,000 a year and a similar proportion will be the first in their families to go to university. They will attend institutions including Princeton, Yale, Harvard, Brown, Columbia and Dartmouth.

The 38 students were given places after attending summer schools run by the Sutton Trust, a charity that tackles educational inequality. These lasted a week and were held at Yale, Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Students lived on campus and visited other institutions.

Those celebrating success included Jordan Clark, 17, from Nottinghamshire. He was brought up by his mother, a cleaner, with five younger siblings. He is studying for A levels in maths, further maths, physics and chemistry and has been accepted by Northwestern University in Chicago. He said: “I’m the first in my family to consider going to university. I want to go to America because of the liberal arts approach. Their degree programmes have more breadth and a strong emphasis on extra-curricular activities.”

Read the full article here. (£)

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