White Working Class Males in British Higher Education
UCAS data also indicates that entry rates are ‘ increasing three times faster for women than for men ’ with 18-year-old women ‘ 35 per cent more likely to enter HE than men , the highest difference recorded ’ ( UCAS , 2015 , p . 13 ) and according to the Higher Education Statistics Agency ( HESA , 2016 ), the national average gender ratio for undergraduate populations at higher education institutions for the 2014 / 2015 academic year was 43.8 percent male to 56.2 percent female .
The participation figures for young men are worse when socio-economic status is taken into account . According to 2014 data , male students in the UK who were eligible for free school meals were only 13.1 percent likely to access higher education , compared with 19.8 percent of female students who were eligible for free school meals ( Hillman and Robinson , 2016 ) and as at the January 2016 UCAS deadline , women in POLAR3 , Quintile 1 locations ( the most disadvantaged areas ) within England were 58 percent more likely to have applied to university than their male peers in the same neighbourhoods ( Thorne , 2016 ). The 2015 end of cycle report from UCAS suggests that in the least advantaged areas women were 50 % more likely to go to university that their male peers . Figure 1 below ( extracted from UCAS , 2015 ) illustrates entry rates of male and female 18 year olds from most and least advantaged areas .
Figure 1 : UK 18 year olds entry rates from most disadvantaged ( POLAR3 Q5 ) areas and from most disadvantaged areas ( POLAR3 Q1 ) by sex
While more women are accessing higher education than men , men are more likely than women to be accepted into higher ranking universities ( Hillman and Robinson , 2016 ), however social class also has a strong impact upon which university a student is likely to attend ( Milburn , 2012 , p . 4 ):
The most advantaged 20 % of young people are still seven times more likely to attend the most selective universities than the 40 % most disadvantaged . Access to university remains inequitable . There is a strong correlation between social class and the likelihood of going to university generally and to the top universities particularly . Four private schools and one college get more of their students into Oxbridge than the combined efforts of 2,000 state schools and colleges .
Reay ( 2015 , p . 19 ) explained that ‘ In 2012 , private school pupils accounted for 7 per cent of British children … and 42.5 per cent of the new Oxford intake ’. Overall , Russell Group universities accept a lower proportion of undergraduate students from disadvantaged backgrounds ( 19 percent in 2011 / 12 ) compared to all universities in the United Kingdom ( nearly 33 percent in 2013 / 14 ) ( Ashley et . al ., 2015 ). The latest figures from HEFCE ( 2016b , p . 17 ) echo the same findings , showing that students from the most disadvantaged backgrounds made up less than 7 percent of entrants at high status universities , as this table indicates :
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