'Society is sliding backwards' as lowest number of disadvantaged Leeds children go to university for 17 years

Fewer pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds are heading on to university
-Credit: (Image: PA Wire/PA Images)


Fewer of the most disadvantaged pupils in Leeds are going on to university.

According to figures from the Department for Education (DfE), 24.4 per cent of Year 11 pupils who were eligible for free school meals when they were 15 in Leeds in the 2022-2023 academic year went on to higher education by the time they were 19. This is down from 24.5 per cent the year before.

This comes as the proportion of the most disadvantaged pupils going on to higher education in England fell for the first time as the gap between them and their peers increased to record levels. This is the first fall in 17 years.

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In Leeds, free school meal pupils lagged behind their peers, with 46.2 per cent of them progressing on to higher education.

Professor Lee Elliot Major, professor of sociology at the University of Exeter, said we are "sliding backwards" as a society since the pandemic. He said: "Record-level participation gaps between free school meal pupils and their more privileged peers are nothing short of a societal failure.

"The cherished principle that anyone, regardless of their background, can study for a degree is becoming a distant dream.

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"These statistics don’t lie: talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not. We are in danger of failing a whole generation."

The numbers of free school meal pupils going on to university varies between regions, with just under half, or 48.6 per cent, of free school meal pupils in London going on to university. This is compared with just 18.8 per cent in the South West.

Yorkshire and the Humber saw 25.2 per cent of these pupils going to university.

In England, the proportion of black pupils getting to university by age 19 also fell from 63.5 per cent to 62.4 per cent.

Nick Harrison, chief executive of the Sutton Trust charity, said: "The pandemic had a profound impact on all young people’s schooling, but hit those in disadvantaged families particularly hard, at the same time as increasing financial pressures for low-income households.

"We saw a big jump in higher education attendance over this time, but the increase was mostly among students from more advantaged backgrounds.

"There is some evidence that universities tried to protect admissions from less advantaged young people, but at the time they lacked access to data about applicants’ free school meals eligibility, and therefore couldn’t effectively prioritise the poorest pupils in their admissions policies."

Education secretary Bridget Phillipson said "breaking the link between where a young person grows up, and the opportunities they have" is central to the Government's mission. She said: "This data exposes entrenched inequalities that have been left to worsen year on year – for the gap in access to university between disadvantaged students and their peers to be the highest on record is appalling.

"We all have a role to play in putting that right but when it comes to access to higher education for disadvantaged students, universities can and must do more."