Sutton Trust report claims universities measure for ‘disadvantaged’ students is ‘conceptually flawed’

Universities’ measures to recruit more students from “disadvantaged” backgrounds have resulted in almost half of students flagged as not coming from working class families.

Social mobility charity The Sutton Trust has produced a report warning that these positive discrimination measures have not succeeded in their goal of targeting less well-off students.

The report says Russell Group institutions may be handing out lower A-level offers to the wrong students, as one of the main measures of deprivation used is “conceptually flawed”.

The Sutton Trust claims the Polar method used by universities to determine a student’s background is “very poorly correlated with low family income”.

The Polar method is used to analyse the likelihood of a student to go to university, and is based on their postcode. Students are then divided into five groups on this likelihood.

The report analysed data from over 7,000 young people in the Millennium Cohort Study, exploring how different measures of deprivation and disadvantage relate to long-term family income.

It examined nine measures, and concluded the most effective indicator of childhood poverty is the number of years a child was eligible for free school meals.

Professor John Jerrim, the author of the report, analysed the household income of students who the Polar system classified as disadvantaged, and found 48 per cent do not come from low income households. A low income household is defined as those with an annual income of around £17,800 and under.

“Overall, Polar has very few advantages,” he said. “It is conceptually flawed as a measure of socio-economic disadvantage. It is very poorly correlated with low family-income.”

He also argued that the Polar system may be biased against minority students who live in a city where there are both high deprivation levels and high levels of university attendance.

“Despite its current widespread use by universities and the support it receives from the regulator, it is inappropriate to use as a contextual indicator for socio-economic disadvantage – particularly when there are many easily accessible, superior alternatives,” he said.

Prof Jerrim said a better alternative would be the length of time the student has been eligible for free school meals, where families must be on universal credit – meaning they earn less than £7,400 – to qualify.

Despite its current widespread use by universities and the support it receives from the regulator, it is inappropriate to use as a contextual indicator for socio-economic disadvantage

– Professor John Jerrim

Professor Lee Elliot Major, a social mobility expert at Exeter University, raised that the use of free school meals to indicate deprivation is also “not without its difficulties”.

He added: “A free school meal pupil in London is, on average, very different to a free school meal pupil in the north-east or south-west of the country.

“They may experience similar material disadvantage at home but starkly different opportunities in their local neighbourhoods.”

Sir Peter Lampl, the chairman and founder of The Sutton Trust, said: “In order to widen access fairly and effectively, universities need to know which students would benefit most from outreach programmes and contextual offers.

“But as today’s research shows, the measures they use are not as effective as they should be at identifying low-income students. They miss out some who deserve support while inaccurately flagging others.”

The Office for Students defended universities’ use of the Polar measure saying: “Polar shows entrenched patterns of under-representation, highlighting neighbourhoods where very few people go into university.

“This is crucial when we consider how best to improve successful higher education participation in the places across the country where people feel they have been left behind.”