A DRIVE to increase the number of university students from the poorest backgrounds in Scotland is threatening to squeeze out applicants who are only slightly better off, according to experts.

The Scottish Government has made it a priority to improve Scotland’s record on university access and made a specific target of those in the poorest 20 per cent of postcodes, who are significantly under-represented.

Previous targets have highlighted those in the bottom 40 per cent.

Agenda: Brexit may yet ease some pressure in quest to widen university access

However, new figures from university admissions service Ucas show that, while numbers in the poorest areas are increasing by nearly 12 per cent, those from the most affluent backgrounds are also growing (three per cent).

The smallest increase in 2016 – just 0.6 per cent – was from students just outside the two target zones previously identified under the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation.

Lucy Hunter-Blackburn, a researcher into student funding at Edinburgh University, questioned previous claims that expanding the number of students from the most disadvantaged backgrounds would break down “entrenched advantage”.

Writing in The Herald today she said: “The most privileged will not necessarily be the ones who take the hit. Competition for places in Scotland is already tight. If more of the existing places are set aside for widening access, applicants with the strongest exam results will continue to be best placed to succeed in competing for the ones which are left.

“Step forward the children of the professional classes, the privately educated, and those whose parents can most easily afford the catchment of high-achieving state schools such as Jordanhill, Mearns Castle or Boroughmuir.

“The applicants most vulnerable to displacement will not be these young people, but those from less academically intense schools and from families with less experience of higher education, but who do not meet the widening access criteria.”

Agenda: Brexit may yet ease some pressure in quest to widen university access

Alastair Sim, director of Universities Scotland, called for close scrutiny of the impact of the drive to widen access on all groups including mature and part-time students and those who had been in care.

He said: “So far there has been positive progress on offer rates to those from the most deprived communities and offer rates to very strong applicants from the most affluent areas have held steady.

“We must beware this does not start to shut off opportunities for pupils in the middle.”

The displacement has arisen because places in higher education are capped. Up to now it had been suggested those most likely to miss out were the middle classes because they dominate places at present.

Professor Peter Scott, the new Commissioner on Fair Access, said he would monitor any unexpected impact of the policy to widen access.

He said: “If the evidence became overwhelming that there was a squeeze of people between the deprived backgrounds and those from privileged groups then that would be an issue that we should have an open, honest debate about.”

Agenda: Brexit may yet ease some pressure in quest to widen university access

Shirley-Anne Somerville, the Higher Education Minister, said: “The days where you can measure the best student by simply looking at their grades are long gone, if they were ever present in the first place, and we need to look afresh at that.

“The system is not fair at the moment and we need to develop it to make it fair and that is what the commissioner will do.

“If we have in mind a system that is truly fair, open and transparent then it will be fair for all students.”