25% of Oxford places to go to poor students - who loses out?

[IrmaFayLear]

From the BBC website:

If 25% of places are to be targeted at applicants from poorer areas - and in recent years, about 40% of places have gone to pupils from private schools - then that leaves 35% for everyone else.

Even the BBC muses that the losers will be ordinary pupils from ordinary backgrounds - not rich enough for private school but living in nice enough areas.

Of course merit should not be overlooked in favour of gloss when admitting students, but I think this is increasingly less the case anyway. But admitting a large specific quota of students to one of the top universities in the world strikes me as nonsensical and unfair.

bubbles

There are literally hundreds of people working to encourage bright young people from non traditional backgrounds into HE....and it is working! However, there is still work to be done. Especially around access to elite universities.

Eliminating structural and cultural barriers takes time.... Doesn't help when people still believe poor people are stupid.

Lots of people don't understand the student finance system fully. The very recent work by Martin Lewis is focussing on this very issue.

Bring debt averse is part of some people's culture ....that mindset is very difficult to change.

There is a strong correlation between parental occupation and educational level and entry to university as well as grammar school but that's not about innate intelligence it's cultural and structural.

Genetic studies of intelligence in the last year or so show a much stronger correlation of ‘genetic’ intelligence and educational achievement than suggested by the above.

However environmental influences impact on edicational choices eg whether to try for university; that is the hardest nut to crack.

For those who are interested here is a link to one such recent paper on the genetics of intelligence and university outcomes.

www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-32621-w

I don't think I worded my post particularly well. I agree absolutely is a genetic link to intelligence but cultural and structural barriers have huge impact on not only whether people go to university but which university the apply to ( nevermind actually receive an offer)

What I disagree with is that people from lower socioeconomic groups are less intelligent and not Oxbridge material... Which is what bubbles seems to be suggesting.

Intelligence is largely genetic but harnessing that intelligence to it's full potential is often structural and cultural.

So many typos ....but you get the gist

I am not suggesting that they cannot go to Oxford, I’m saying that if parents have not achieved well at school, then it’s more difficult. That appears to be true from up to date research and you have not provided any stats to say this is not correct. Of course academic excellence is only part of the equation.

The reason universities are making changes is because what has happened up to now is not deemed to be working. You, Cinsysnza, have not managed to find or persuade DC to apply to Oxford. The stats are there. Deprived areas have few applying, if any. Sometimes this must be because they are not bright enough to go! Statistically this must be so. If also explains, in my view, why DC from areas where many adults to Oxford will stand a better chance. It’s in their culture to have a go.

However it’s inevitable that the right DC will have to be targeted. DC from lower socioeconomic groups just won’t apply unless lots of other changes are put in place and I think that’s impossible. They might now be offered foundation years so even that’s saying you are not good enough! All the research and work will not necessarily change the views of DC or their parents. This is partly an anti-elite sentiment too. You have abandoned your culture if you leave it and get above yourself. It’s now cool to be staying within your culture. Kids are not striving for Oxford and it will take a monumental shift in attitude to change that.

You also seem to be calling me thick, Constanza. Maybe I am and that’s just the sort of attitude that stops people trying to get in in life. No one is as clever or as well versed as you! Even when we can read articles for ourselves and do research that doesn’t agree with you!

Sentence missing : where many adults have been to university and possibly even to Oxford, etc

I'm not calling you thick ...I'm suggesting you don't understand the full picture. I'm an academic and this is my particular area of research. I understand fully the reasons why people from certain groups aren't applying to elite institutions. I teach, research and write about it. As a guest generation student myself I'm very passionate about fair access to HE.

Nobody is suggesting that all young people or all bright young people from deprived areas should be at Oxford or even at university full stop....but research shows that young people from lower socioeconomic groups are underrepresented at elite universities despite achieving the required qualifications.

It's not as easy as saying people like me have failed to fix the problems. For a start there are multiple issues at play...when I did work in widening participation the focus was getting non traditional students to just simply consider university as an option. This has worked to an extent but it's now important to take it a step further and think about the type of institution they apply to and attend.

A huge issue for people doing widening participation type jobs is funding. These are government funded initiatives and a change of government can increase or reduce funding almost overnight and can change the focus of funding. That can make projects difficult to sustain.

Only a very small proportion of all university applicants are capable of attending Oxbridge. Currently privately educated, rich people dominate those places. It's not because they're more intelligent than their poorer counterparts it's because they have the economic, social and cultural capital to harness their intelligence and become a candidate which fits in with the Oxford way of doing things

Parental education levels are a strong predictor of a young person's education pathway but again that's not necessarily intelligence - its role models, cultural capital and culture.

How do you figure out if HE is good option for you if nobody you know has ever been? How do you navigate the application process if you've got nobody to ask for help? There is some really interesting research on parental influence and how young people interpret their parents reactions and knowledge to their educational choices.

Oh and my job has never been to persuade applicants to apply to Oxford do you can stop blaming me for the issues at play!

"Sometimes this must be because they are not bright enough to go!"

What!

From someone who suggested that students who struggled to settle in Bristol's relatively affluent and undiverse culture as 'outliers'.

Caution meeds to exercised. It is not unusual for bright London students from deprived backgrounds to get places in selective private sixth forms sometimes on bursaries. They often go on to good Universities or sought after apprenticeships. Many, though, wont choose Oxbridge. It does not mean they are less bright. Just that Oxbridge is faff for both student and school, it is more expensive than staying in London, for a lot of more specialised quasi vocational courses London is as good, and stepping too far out of a cultural comfort zone is a risk, especially if you are first generation to go to University and so dont have the same level of support.

You yourself have suggested that students who have beento boarding school find it easier, in places like Bristol. I see real advantage in many students, especially from non traditional backgrounds staying close to home as long as the University will stretch them and thd course is right.

In many ways I think Oxford needs these students more than they need Oxford.

Real life example.

I met the parents of two of my sons closest British friends at DS' graduation. All had the fractured English of a first generation, but with a shared pride in our DC. I expect that the poor command of English precluded access to professional jobs, but this would never have caused me to think that the parents were in any was less bright. (Indeed I find the idea shocking.)

One of DS' friends landed a job with £50k annual salary and a signing on bonus. The other has full funding for a PhD at a good University in the US. Would both have done as well at Oxford. I am not sure. There certainly would have been risk. Would there have been any advantage in going to Oxford. Again I am not sure. The sheer diversity in London means everyone has a different background. What then binds people is their interest in their subject.

At the same graduation ceremony was an Albanian member of staff whose path to a top ranked University was both tricky and impressive. (Someone who had really gone out of his way to encourage DS in his first year.) From the top floor we could see the hospital DS was born in, his school, even our house. No journey at all. Yes right place, right country, right school make it a lot easier. But at some stage they all have to earn their respect.

It seems that "poor" only extends as far as poor in London, and particularly children of first-generation immigrants who have the reputation of valuing education and possessing a great work ethic and whose parents may well have been high flyers had they had the opportunity. Just like the working classes in Britain, in fact, whose offspring made a "great leap forward" in the 60s.

I wonder if CostanzaG believes that 25% of pupils in, say, Gt Yarmouth or Andover are deserving of focus? I wonder if her research trips have taken her to such places? Just wondering.

Well as I'm based in the north of England the answer to that would be no.....

My research has been with individuals and groups from Manchester, Yorkshire and the north east. However, my samples have been large and representative enough to be considered valid and robust enough to be applied to other areas of the country.

As in I haven't researched students in Andover or gt Yarmouth...or London for that matter. In fact I've not even mentioned London once......

@CostanzaG thank you for being eloquent and reasonable when I just want to scream. We know that you want to keep all your lovely establishments to yourselves but the times are changing. Poor, immigrant kids are beating your kids at exams, so get used to seeing us around.

Yes giving children from poorer backgrounds and under-performing schools a better chance of entering Uni is unfair......

The level of middle class advantages that mine and other children have over kids from these backgrounds is literally endless . Appreciate not all homes are the same but children from lower socio economic groups will have less books, nutritious food, stable homes, extra curricular activities... But allowing them a bit of a leg up to enter Uni is unfair

It should be driven from school and before. Give children the access to decent education and facilities before they hit higher education.

I suspect drop out rates of students who are given weighted places would be higher than non weighted places. There would be a few reasons for this.

I'm screaming internally extra but thank you!

@LordProfFekkoThePenguinPhD any research to back that up? Or just a 'suspicion'

Sorry that was a half thought there (distracted by a call). I was listening to a radio piece that said that the drop out rate of certain ethnic and social group was disproportionately higher than the average (I think it was oxford and Cambridge) and was wondering why this was. I know that I’d feel like an absolute fish out of water there (so I might have thrown in the towel) and when I was at uni a couple of women dropped out purely for financial reasons (single mums).

So not sure what the puzzled face was for.

There are certain groups who are more likely to drop out and there are certain times of year which see higher drop out rates. Universities are aware of this and lots offer targeted support.
In my university it's commuter students who are most at risk as they tend to feel less involved in university life.

My brother dropped out. I almost did - I didn’t fee that I was smart enough to be there.

Well you didn't finish what you were saying so I think that's a pretty sufficient reason for me to be confused. The way I read your argument was 'I think poor people and ethnic minorities can't be assed with all that uni malarkey because they're lazy.' If you don't tell people the reason why you 'suspect' certain things then they'll assume the worst. Especially if the world already thinks the worst of them.
This thread's making me depressed. My dad is an asylum seeker, we grew up receiving hand outs from the church. I went to uni, I finished with a 2:1. I deserved it. Now I clean hospitals because I never believed anyone would consider me for a 'graduate level' job. Maybe if I'd gone to Oxford they could have instilled the confidence necessary for poor, mixed race girls with regional accents to know that they can rule the world.

I was rung up to join a conference call that I wasn’t expecting! You don’t always need to assume the worst you know.

DC offered a place at Oxford to do a masters. Cost £21,000 in fees. The exact amount that I earn as a single parent. Unable to borrow as I don't earn enough. My son has incredible potential (not my assessment btw) and has worked incredibly hard to now be faced with turning down his place. Do not tell me there is a level playing field and it is mot based on finance.

The expectation these days is that we copy the US style of higher education. Shit loads of borrowing and debt.