White, well-off middle class families still EXERT A STRANGLEHOLD over
places at the top universities, despite the millions of pounds spent
encouraging the poor and moderately well-off to apply, new research
reveals.

Children from the richest 2% of all households, are more than four and
a half times more likely to study at high-ranking universities such as
Bristol and Warwick than children from average neighbourhoods. They
are twice as likely as the average child in Britain to go to
university at all, according to data exclusive to the Guardian.

Children from the most affluent quarter of families - characterised by
researchers as owning two cars and a home with four bedrooms - account
for 55% of students at prestigious universities.

By contrast, children from the poorest 25% of households, typically
living in terrace homes or flats, make up less than 6.3% of the
student population of these universities.

Attempts to increase the proportion of university students from low-
income families and ethnic minorities have been at the heart of
Labour's higher education policies. They are linked to the
government's target to have 50% of young people in university by next
year.

Universities such as Bristol have tried to shake off their reputation
for elitism, with initiatives to encourage under-represented groups to
apply. But the research shows that at Bristol University 3% of
students come from the poorest quarter of homes, while 54% are from
the richest quarter.

The data, which the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats say is
evidence the government has failed to improve social mobility, comes
from the market analyst firm Caci. Seventeen universities across
Britain agreed to give the company 1,000 random postcodes of full-time
undergraduates in their first year.

The 17,000 anonymous post codes are of the homes from which the
students applied to the universities.

Caci put each postcode into its demographic classification service,
Acorn, to find out to which rung of the ladder of affluence each of
the students belonged.

All 1.9m British post codes fit into one of Acorn's categories, which
range from one, the richest, to 56, the poorest. Some categories are
in almost all-white neighbourhoods, while others have a high
proportion of certain ethnic minorities.

The data shows children from home-owning Asian families of Indian
origin are almost two and a half times more likely to go to university
than the average British child and more than one and a half times more
likely to go to a prestigious university. A top university typically
requires minimum A-level results of three Bs and above.

Children from postcodes that are home to the highest proportion of
Asians of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin are more than twice as
likely to go to university than the average British child. These homes
are relatively poor, with an average household income of £25,800, but
going to university is far more likely than in white, working-class
families with the same income.

The study shows that students from the poorest households are
concentrated in the newer, less prestigious universities.

More than half (55%) of the students at Bristol, Warwick and Queen's
Belfast universities come from the richest homes.

The Conservatives' shadow universities minister, David Willetts, said
the data was "the hard evidence" that Labour had "failed to widen
educational opportunities for people in low-income households".

The Liberal Democrat universities spokesman, Stephen Williams, said:
"This evidence makes a mockery of the government's supposed commitment
to social mobility. After over a decade of a Labour government, higher
education is still dominated by the better-off."

A spokeswoman from the Department for Innovation, Universities and
Skills said: "Broader evidence shows that our hard work is paying off
- over 50% of young people from every social class and every region
say they want to go to university, and the number of young people from
poorer backgrounds entering university rose by over 8% in 2008."

The 17 universities in the study were Bath Spa, Birmingham City,
Bolton, Bristol, East London, Queen's Belfast, Hull, Kingston, Napier,
Middlesex, Plymouth, Reading, Stirling, Teesside, Staffordshire,
Sunderland and Warwick.


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