Cuts must not be made to widening access schemes, philanthropist says

One of Britain's best-known philanthropists has warned against cutting the money spent on widening university access, as an outreach scheme designed to help bright pupils from poor backgrounds get into top universities is shown to have doubled their chances. Sir Peter Lampl, chairman of the Sutton Trust, said the approaching squeeze on higher education places as institutions find ways of saving £950m makes it more important than ever that less privileged children get a fair share of the places at the best universities. According to a study due to be unveiled tomorrow, almost half of the 16-year-olds in the Reach for Excellence (RfE) project in West Yorkshire – who benefited from a summer school, special lectures and individual mentoring and advice sessions – got into prestigious universities, compared with just a fifth of students from similarly underprivileged homes. Some 86% of the RfE students were the first member of their family to go to university. Almost three-quarters of their A-level grades were As or Bs, compared with just 55% for students in the comparison group. "Despite the current economic constraints, if we are genuinely interested in boosting this country's shamefully low level of social mobility, we need to invest more, not less, in schemes like this," Lampl said. "At a time when university expansion looks set to be frozen, the question of which students get the limited number of places at our leading universities is particularly important. "We can't afford to allow the opportunities these institutions offer to become even more concentrated in the hands of the privileged – which is why schemes like this are even more crucial in the current climate." The Sutton Trust is concerned about the future funding of access work both from central government and from universities themselves. Lampl's intervention comes after Gordon Brown moved to make greater social mobility one of his central election campaign themes, and Harriet Harman insisted that class remained the single biggest factor in determining individual achievement. Responding to a report on access to the professions, ministers pledged extra help for 130,000 of the brightest young people from poorer families to get into college and university. But concerns have been raised that pupils who do not come from privileged backgrounds are still not getting into the best institutions in large enough numbers. Government figures from 2004-05 showed that less than one in five young degree entrants to Russell Group universities were from the four lower social classes, while those groups accounted for almost 30% of young students in higher education overall. "A research-led university remains the surest way to access sought-after and influential careers," Lampl said. "This thorough evaluation shows that well designed and targeted programmes really can transform the expectations and outcomes of bright, non-privileged young people." The Reach for Excellence scheme, which is run from the University of Leeds and sponsored by the Sutton Trust and the Halifax, was evaluated against a control group of students with similar academic and socio-economic characteristics. Among the 295 students followed by a team from the National Foundation for Educational Research, some 45% of the 114 on the scheme ended up at universities that were either members of the elite Russell or 1994 groups. Only 21% of those in the control group went to those universities. The programme also boosted the likelihood of students entering higher education in any form, with 87% of the students on the project doing so, compared with 65% of the control. The vice-chancellor of Leeds, Professor Michael Arthur, said the scheme had enabled the university to identify and help the brightest and best students from disadvantaged backgrounds. "Without it, many would not have had the opportunity or motivation to come to a research-intensive university like Leeds," he said. "The first cohort of students from the programme is now at university, and we are confident that they are on track to do as well, if not better, than students from more advantaged backgrounds." The Reach for Excellence programme was launched in 2007 and will benefit 360 students overall, over three consecutive year groups.