Oxford spends £108,000 on each low-income student

The University of Oxford spends £108,000 (US$141,000) for each additional student from a poor background it admits every year, according to a new analysis of its efforts to improve access, writes Richard Adams for The Guardian.

The data, first published in Prospect, is based on Oxford’s record of admitting about 10 extra students from low-income postcodes each year between 2009 and 2016, spending at least £14 million a year on access and widening participation as required by higher education regulators. About 5,000 school-leavers in the two most disadvantaged postcode categories attain A-level grades that would qualify them for Oxbridge, but Oxford admitted only 220 such students in 2015-16.

Writing in Prospect, Alan Rusbridger, the former Guardian editor who is now principal of Lady Margaret Hall, said Oxford “rightly wants to recruit ‘the best’ but it is struggling to find them all – unless you believe ‘the best’ uniquely reside within the top 20% band of the socio-economically better off”.
Full report on The Guardian site