Figures suggest Oxford and Cambridge among seven Russell Group institutions with lower proportion of poorer students compared with 10 years ago

Some of the UK’s most prestigious universities have a lower proportion of students from poor backgrounds now than they did 10 years ago, research suggests.

Analysis of official data by the Press Association found that the universities of Oxford and Cambridge were among seven Russell Group institutions where the proportion of students from disadvantaged families declined over the past decade.

The study was based on Higher Education Statistics Agency records of students’ National Statistics Socio-economic Classification (NS-SEC), which is determined using applicants’ self-reporting of parental occupations, and it gives a picture of widening participation that contrasts sharply with analyses based on other measures, such as participation figures from different neighbourhoods.

The data show that the proportion of students with parents who were in lower-level occupations or were unemployed increased by 4.8 percentage points across UK higher education between 2004-05 and 2014-15, from 28.2 per cent to 33 per cent.

But across the 24 Russell Group universities, the average increase was only 1.4 percentage points, from 19.5 per cent to 20.8 per cent.

Oxford had the lowest proportion of students from NS-SEC classes four to seven, declining from 12.3 per cent to 10 per cent over the decade. Cambridge fared little better, dropping from 12.4 per cent to 10.2 per cent.