Report published by higher education think tank HEPI examines distinctiveness of Oxford and Cambridge within the UK’s HE system

A report published today (19 November 2009) by the respected independent HE think tank HEPI concludes that Oxford and Cambridge are qualitatively different from other universities in the UK. The study was undertaken to investigate whether Oxford and Cambridge are unique in the United Kingdom higher education system – are they simply at the end of a continuum or are they qualitatively different from other universities?

The study looks at these universities from a number of different angles:

• the ability of their students (as measured by their prior educational achievements)
• aspects of their provision (as measured by the National Student Survey and surveys of how hard their students work)
• the outcomes of their graduates (for example, their appearances in Who's Who and the number of professors in UK universities who attended Oxford or Cambridge)
• the aspects of the quality of the research done within those universities.

Commenting on the report’s findings, Bahram Bekhradnia, HEPI’s Director, said:

“We found that in all these respects Oxford and Cambridge are distinctive to a remarkable extent. Only in terms of research performance do other universities in the Golden Triangle (LSE, Imperial College and UCL) perform nearly as well in some respects, but none comes close to matching Oxford and Cambridge in terms of the breadth and depth of internationally world-leading research. In terms of the nature of their student bodies, our study reveals, as is well-known, that these are notably skewed in favour of independently educated and better off students, but the report’s findings confirm that this is because of academic, not social, selection and is the result of the unequal outcomes of this country's school system.

“Nevertheless, there is some evidence to suggest that Oxford and Cambridge admit more independent school pupils than is warranted and that their insistence that they will not engage in social engineering but will make decisions about admissions on purely academic grounds leaves them vulnerable to the charge of social elitism. There seems no reason why Oxford and Cambridge should not take a leaf out of the book of some of the great American universities which are explicit that they aim to achieve the best social and ethnic mix they can while always insisting on the highest academic standards.

“Finally, we looked at the income available to Oxford and Cambridge, which have a number of substantial income streams not available to other universities. Consequently, their expenditure per student is significantly more than in other universities - it is this that enables them to excel to the extent that they do.”