White children eligible for free school meals (FSM) are lagging behind their peers when it comes to progressing to university, according to a report by social mobility charity the Sutton Trust.
Sizeable gaps between ethnic and regional groups in moving from school to higher education (HE) have been identified by the charity, with only 18 per cent of white British FSM pupils taking the leap by age 19, compared with 62 per cent of black African and 58 per cent of Indian FSM pupils.
Even the grouping with the second lowest progression rate, black Caribbean children with the FSM entitlement, go to university at a rate of 36 per cent, double that of their white British contemporaries.
Although white British girls have higher rates of progression into HE than their male counterparts, the same grouping is further behind other cohorts of girls, with a 22 percentage point gap between them and black Caribbean FSM girls.
Carl Cullinane, director of research and policy at the Sutton Trust and one of the report’s authors, said: “One of the big reasons for these gaps are differing experiences and attitudes to education among parents. White working-class parents are much more likely to have had negative experiences of school themselves, which affects their engagement with schools and the importance they place on education.
