A new report, Gender Gaps in Higher Education Participation, reveals that white teenagers are less likely to go to university than school leavers from other ethnic groups - even with the same A-level results.  The gap is widest among boys from poor backgrounds, raising fears that working-class boys are becoming the education "underclass" in England.  
According to the report, just over one in 20 white boys from poor homes goes on to university.  This compares with 66 per cent of Indian girls and 65 per cent of young women from Chinese families.

Bill Rammell, the Higher Education Minister, said "Part of what we have to do is to look across society and look among the ethnic minority groups where there is a very strong attachment to education and try to learn from that".  

Last year the proportion of young men studying for a degree fell to 35 per cent, compared with 47 per cent of women.  However, the report says that ethnicity and social class have a greater bearing on staying-on rates, even when comparing students with the same A-level results.  Just six per cent of white boys eligible for free school meals went to university compared with 26 per cent of working-class young men from ethnic minority backgrounds. Black Caribbean boys are the only group less likely to go to university than white boys.

Gender Gaps and Higher Education Participation