Oxford still lags behind other leading universities in terms of specific ethnic minority representation at undergraduate level, despite £4million spent on outreach programs each year.
The statistics published by the University show that percentage of BME (black and minority ethnic) domestic students admitted to the University was just over one in ten in 2009.
A report published by Race for Opportunity last year showed similar findings at Cambridge, while across the country the average is closer to one in six.
With the cap on fees having now been lifted, some students have warned that Oxford’s elitist image could worsen.
Although many ethnic minorities are well-represented in Oxford, others are not. Black Carribean students acount for only 0.04% of the undergraduate population, compared to 1% of the population as a whole.
David Lammy, a Labour politician who criticized Oxford when the study was released, said it “reveal[ed] a system in which getting a place remains a matter of being white, middle class and southern.”
The University, along with many students, has disagreed with this comment, but there are some who feel that Oxford remains an institution which could do more to appeal to minorities.
A spokesperson for Oxford said, “The university is concerned to ensure it attracts and recruits the best students, whatever their background.”
However statistics show that ethnic minorities tend to enjoy a lower success rate than white students when applying to Oxford.
Only 2.9% of African Caribbean students who applied were accepted compared with 27.6% of white students.
Subject choice may partially account for this, as BME students tend to apply disproportionately for the most oversubscribed courses. 44% of all black applicants to Oxford, for example, apply for the three most popular courses: Economics & Management, Medicine and Mathematics.
29% of all black applicants applied for Medicine alone, while only 7% of white applicants did.
Sean Stevens, a second year Geography student, said, “Race is absolutely not an issue. But there is a great misconception of Oxford being traditional, with low numbers of ethnic groups.”
Asked why there were larger numbers of ethnic minority students at universities such as LSE and UCL, Sean added, “Ethnic minorities tend to place less focus on arts, whereas Oxford is seen as quite arts-based. That doesn’t appeal.”
Ron Hann, writing for the website virtualeconomics.com, called upon politicians to focus on the root of the problem, which he believes to be the poor quality of some secondary education.
He said, “If politicians are concerned about the level of admissions amongst applicants who have gone to state schools, or from outside the south-east, or even from specific ethnic backgrounds, the solution is […] to provide all of the children of this country with an education that would fit them for higher education.”
Arnold Ayoo, a second year Law student, agreed that the educational background of students was of greater significance.
He said, “Oxford is a friendly place in that I feel no differently here than I do at home. I find that differences between me and others are only more notable because of my northern and state (albeit grammar) school background rather than the colour of my skin.”
He added, “The proportion of ethnic students in Oxford is merely a reflection of the proportion of ethnic minority students in the places Oxford recruits from – leading grammar schools and top public schools. It cannot be criticised for ‘failing’ to admit a higher proportion if there simply aren’t the numbers in the better schools.
“It is a reflection on the general social structure of the UK where many black students are in the more deprived areas and predominantly comprehensive schools. The situation will stay the same as long as the distribution of black students amongst these kinds of schools stays the same.”
Previous coverage of representation in Oxford has been criticised for focusing on under-representation of specific ethnic groups.
A spokeswoman for the University Admissions Office said, “The coverage has largely focussed on one small subset of the Oxford population – those that are black (or even black Caribbean), British and undergraduate. This gives a somewhat narrow picture of things.”
They added that the poor representation of some ethnic groups at the University is a problem only likely to get worse if the negative image of Oxford in the press continues.
“We are obviously concerned that one side effect of all the coverage will be to discourage BME students who might otherwise make a competitive application to Oxford but might now think that there is no point because Oxford ‘doesn’t want’ someone like them, or actively tries to exclude students from certain backgrounds. This would be a terrible outcome for those students, and for Oxford.”
The spokesperson added that Oxford does not specifically target ethnic minorities with their outreach programmes.
They said, “Oxford’s admissions work is targeted at schools rather than specific groups of students (demographic, ethnic or otherwise), and this is because our admissions team believes that working with schools and teachers is the most effective way to ensure that many cohorts of student have access to the right information and are encouraged in their applications.”
University students from ethnic minority backgrounds commented that Oxford is still perceived by some to be an elitist institution.
Hasan Ali, a second year student at Christ Church, said, “I think it is undoubtedly the case that if you are an ethnic minority student in secondary education thinking about which universities to apply to, there is plenty of material out there to dissuade you from applying to Oxford.
“It is worth bearing in mind that students from minority groups tend to apply to do very specific courses in quite a narrow spread of applications. I think with time this will change as second generation immigrants become third generation immigrants and so on and so forth.
“I mean, it was difficult to convince my parents to let me read English at university but my children, if I ever have any, will have no such problems.”
When students of all nationalities, and across all years, are taken into account, the percentage who are BME is 22%.
It is unclear yet how Oxford University access schemes will be affected by higher education funding cuts in 2012.
Some commentators have already suggested that Oxford must do more in the way of social responsibility to justify its likely fee rise to £9000.
