Minority ethnic groups and higher education in Britain: Questions of access and equity

The role of higher education in Britain is in transition as the system expands to educate an ever‐growing proportion of the nation's eighteen‐year‐olds. In the past it could have been argued that one of its main functions was to reproduce the class which would direct the country in the political, judicial, industrial, commercial and educational spheres. Now, succesful completion of a first degree will be unlikely in itself to guarantee access to the ruling élites. This paper considers questions of access and equity within British higher education, and focuses, in particular, on how young people from the minority groups constituted by recent immigration to Britain fare within the system.