The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge are widely considered the best in Britain: an Oxbridge education implies membership of an intellectual elite. But many believe the elitism of Oxbridge is more than a matter of academic excellence. Almost half of students at Oxbridge have been privately educated, a privilege enjoyed by only 7% of all pupils. Earlier this year, the Sutton Report revealed that just five elite schools sent more students to Oxbridge over a three year period than 2000 other UK schools combined. A recent government report on social mobility, ‘Opening Doors’, noted that fewer than a hundred of the least privileged schoolchildren (the almost one in five eligible for free school meals) make it to Oxbridge each year. So are our top universities responsible for reproducing a social elite while excluding those from more humble backgrounds, thus entrenching inequality?

Social mobility is now a major concern for all three major parties, and the coalition government – dominated by Oxbridge graduates – is keen to remove perceived barriers to upward mobility. Universities minister David Willetts wants universities to favour candidates from state schools and disadvantaged backgrounds, and this priority is reflected in higher education funding reforms. David Cameron has openly accused Oxbridge of elitism, and caused a stir when he lamented that Oxford accepted only one black student in 2009 (though this turned out to be misleading). The universities themselves insist they are doing all they can to encourage less privileged school leavers to apply, pointing out that they can’t be held responsible for those pupils’ relative underachievement at school. So is Oxbridge being made to shoulder the blame for the shortcomings of the state education system? Or, as some critics contend, do superficial efforts at outreach mask more insidious form of exclusion? A recent study argues Cambridge’s ‘formal hall’, in which students dress up in gowns to be served by waiters and learn which way to pass the port, serves to maintain the British class system. Some argue the whole culture of Oxbridge sends a message that certain people are not welcome.

Others, like Pam Tatlow of the university thinktank million+, argue the obsession with getting a few students from poorer backgrounds into Oxbridge only reinforces the idea that only elite universities are worth going to, denigrating the newer universities and their students. Meanwhile, NUS President Liam Burns suggests we stop seeing universities as centres of knowledge, and reconceive them as vehicles of social mobility. So should access to university mean access to a challenging higher education, or simply the credentials necessary to get ahead? Is it possible to maintain academic excellence while opening the doors to more students on the basis of their lower socio-economic backgrounds?  More fundamentally, is higher education really the key to social mobility? Or is this an unfair burden on institutions already bending over backwards to enrol less advantaged students? Should we look instead to schools, or elsewhere in society?