college students
The Office for Students (OfS) has announced plans to overhaul its guidelines for boosting diversity in higher education.
Universities could be punished unless they give a higher proportion of top degrees to black students, under new proposals drawn up by the regulator.

The Office for Students (OfS) has announced plans to overhaul its guidelines for boosting diversity in higher education, in what it says is the "biggest shake up" since 2004.

If institutions fail to comply with the regulator's new "tougher" national targets for increasing the number of disadvantaged students, they could be penalised through a fine or even de-registered.

Chris Millward, the OfS director for fair access and participation, said that universities will no longer be able to "mark their own homework" on their plans to up their intake of 18-year-olds from poor backgrounds.

Instead, the new regulator, which came into force earlier this year, plans to set a series of national targets that all universities will be expected to meet.

These will not be limited to targets for admitting more school leavers from deprived households, but will also include addressing the gap in degree attainment between black and white students, according to OfS proposals.

There has been an almost 50 per cent increase in the number of black and ethnic minority students in England between 2007 and 2016.

78 per cent of white students graduated last year with a first class of upper second class degree, compared to just 53 per cent of black students.

Qualifications before attending university, although a key factor in degree outcomes, do not explain the differences between ethnic groups, according to data analysed by Universities UK.

In a consultation document, published today, the regulator sets out a number of areas that universities should work on, such as combatting the higher drop-out rate among poorer students compared to their middle-class peers.

Mr Millward said: "Universities have always set their own targets, and have used different measures of success. They were kind of marking their own homework.

"We are going to set clearer national targets which they will refer to: not just looking at access but do students finish their courses? What is their degree outcome depending on background?"

Mr Millward said that universities have spent hundreds of millions of pounds on measures aimed at diversifying their intake of students, but have paid little or no attention to whether their schemes were effective.

graduates
The OfS plans to set a series of national targets that all universities will be expected to meet.
"I don't doubt that universities are committed to improving access. They are spending a lot of money and doing a lot but they don't understand enough about whether it's working," he told The Daily Telegraph.

"We are upping the expectation on evaluation. Once we know that, we can target [budgets] where it can make a difference."

Last year, universities spent a total of around £800 million on projects to increase access and around half of this was spent on bursaries for students from poor households.

"I'm not arguing against bursaries being provided, particularly because students can be really challenged by the cost when they are at university," Mr Millward said.

"But there is very little evidence that bursaries improve access. That is a really obvious areas where we need to evaluate. [We need to] ask why it is spent and what impact it is having?"

Dr Tim Bradshaw, chief executive of the Russell Group, said he welcomes the emphasis on evaluation

"There is a great deal of activity to improve access taking place across the sector but what we need now is a clear overview of which interventions make the biggest difference," he said. "We need to be clearer on what works, and what doesn't, if we are to shift the dial."