Social inequality is a problem, but universities can’t solve it alone

In 1962 I made the leap of a lifetime – from a severely cash-limited working-class household in Hackney (my father had been a packer in a Whitechapel warehouse) to Oxford University. No obstacles were put in my way. Educated at an LCC secondary school, I spent a week at Lincoln College, taking exams for admission to the BA (Hons) in Modern History, and answering questions at a series of intellectually punishing academic interviews. No concessions were made to my socio-economic background. Nor, incidentally, did I benefit from any private tuition, which my parents could never have afforded. I was awarded an Exhibition (a form of scholarship) on merit. Had the college and the university said – perhaps not in so many words – that I had not reached the required standard but that nonetheless some sort of allowance had been made for my parents’ economic circumstances, or (worse still) for my ethnic origins, I would have felt deeply insulted.