£211,500 spent to get EACH poor student a place at university

More than £1billion has been spent recruiting just 5,300 students from disadvantaged homes to university, it emerged yesterday.

Spending on schemes to boost numbers of poorer students has doubled in five years to more than £2.3billion, figures obtained by the Tories show.

But universities' intake of students classed as having working- class backgrounds has crept up only fractionally.

Astonishingly, it means £211,500 has been spent recruiting every additional working class student to university.

The Tories accused ministers of failing to do enough to raise standards in schools and ensure poorer pupils get the grades they need in academic subjects to get into university.

David Willetts, Conservative spokesman for universities, said: "These figures show that despite spending massive amounts of money, the Government has barely improved access for children from modest-backgrounds to university.

"It shows its policies are not working - it needs to get to the root of the problem and improve standards in schools.

"There also needs to be better advice so that students do the right GCSEs and A-levels they need to get into university.

"I have visited summer schools where students are taking bizarre A-level combinations - psychology, drama and law, for example, to do engineering at university."

He added: "We do need to provide financial support for poor families but this shows the Government is wrong to think that cracks the problem."

The statistics reveal £2.3billion of public funds is being spent widening access to university in 2007/08 - up from £1.2billion in 2002/03.

The true total is certain to be even higher, nearer £2.5billion, after taking into account as yet unknown spending by universities on bursaries.

Yet the number of students from the bottom four social groups rose just 5,271 over the same five-year period, from 67,823 to 73,094.

The picture is even worse among 18-year-old full-time students from poorer homes - the main target of widening access programmes. Only around 1,800 extra students in this group have been recruited over the five-year period.

In 2007/08, the lion's share of the widening access cash - £1.89billion - went on maintenance grants and subsidising student loans for living expenses and tuition fees.

The increase in fees at most universities from £1,200 a year to £3,000 two years ago required a steep increase in maintenance grants to offset the higher charges for poorer students.

Meanwhile some £356million went direct to universities and includes incentives to accept students from neighbourhoods with little tradition of going to university - the socalled postcode premium.

Cash was also spent on the Aimhigher scheme, intended to raise academic aspirations among students whose parents did not go on to higher education.

However official evaluations of the scheme have questioned its effectiveness and spending has been reduced from £136million in 2004/05 to £80million in 2007/08.

Ministers have applied particular pressure to elite institutions to increase their intake of working-class students.

But the latest figures fuelled concerns that a major increase is not achievable through increased grants and pressure at university level alone.

Higher Education Minister Bill Rammell said the proportion of students from low social groups had risen from 27.9 per cent in 2002/03 to 29.1 per cent in 2005/06.

He added: "Widening access requires long term investment and change across the higher education system."