Black Caribbean students under-represented at Oxford University

by Michelle Gomes



Wednesday 10th February 2010, 14:21 GMT

Students from ethnic minority backgrounds are under-represented at the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, a recent report has claimed.

The report, published by Race for Opportunity, a branch of the outreach charity Business in the Community, claimed that only 10.5 per cent of Cambridge students and 11.1 per cent of Oxford students are from black or minority ethnic backgrounds (BME). These figures are significantly below the national average.


Some Russell Group universities are, however, making notable progress in improving diversification: at both the London School of Economics and King’s College London, over 40 per cent of students are from ethnic minorities.

The report goes on to assert that the most under-represented groups at Oxbridge are black and British Bangladeshi students and that, furthermore, at Oxford and Cambridge, there are seven times fewer black or black British Caribbean students than on average at other British universities.


Similarly, minority percentages remain high at Imperial College and UCL, with over 37.8 per cent and 31.5 per cent of students from BME backgrounds, respectively.

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