c) England’s most selective universities must do more to attract teenagers from disadvantaged backgrounds if they want to charge higher tuition fees, the country’s fair access watchdog has warned.
a) Professor Les Ebdon, director of Fair Access to Higher Education, has said universities can no longer make excuses about the number of poorer students they take on.
d) In a statement issued yesterday, Prof Ebson dismissed the argument from the country’s most selective universities, which claim that young people from poorer backgrounds generally secure worse grades.
b) Such defences from the country’s most elite universities “do not hold water”, Prof Ebdon said, as he urged the institutions to do more to widen their intakes.
