SOCIAL IMMOBILITY

One of the boasts of the present government is that we now live in a society of social mobility wherein someone from an impoverished background can still have access to a higher education. Like most of their boast it is nonsense. "A quarter of English universities failed to meet their targets to admit substantially more disadvantaged students last year, a government watchdog has revealed. Cambridge, Bristol, Exeter, Durham and University College London are among 23 institutions that admit making insufficient progress in widening their mix of applicants in 2009-10, leading to accusations that the intake of the most selective universities is "increasingly privileged". David Willetts, the universities minister, said the report was proof that social mobility had stalled." (Guardian, 29 September) RD