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The raising of tuition fees to £9,000 has not put off students from disadvantaged backgrounds from applying to university – although the gap in applications between those from wealthy and poor backgrounds remains wide, according to new analysis.
The figures from the Independent Commission on Fees – established in response to the decision to almost treble fees in 2012 – come alongside an Ipsos Mori poll commissioned by the Sutton Trust that shows that a majority of voters would support students from poor backgrounds being charged lower tuition fees.
The commission found that university application rates for 18-year-olds in England have continued to recover from their post-rise lows, with application rates for 2014 entry – including students who will receive their A-level results on Thursday – almost two percentage points higher than in 2010.
While students who are not eligible for free school meals – available for pupils from households earning less than £16,000 – remain more than twice as likely to go to university, the gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students has narrowed from 30.5% in 2010 to 29.8% in 2013.
"Disadvantaged young people are applying to and entering higher education at higher rates than ever before, which is excellent news," said Professor Les Ebdon, director of the Office of Fair Access to Higher Education watchdog.
Ebdon said this showed that higher fees and loans did not have a deterrent effect. "Despite this, the report shows that there is still an unacceptably large gap in participation rates between the most and least advantaged young people," he said.
The commission found that in 2010 school-leavers from the most prosperous backgrounds were 7.3 times more likely to enter the 30 most selective universities in the UK than those from the most disadvantaged areas, but by 2013 the ratio had narrowed slightly to 6.8.
At the top 13 most selective universities, the ratio remained even higher at 9.5 to one, down from 9.8 in 2010.
Will Hutton, chair of the Independent Commission on Fees, said that young men from disadvantaged areas are particularly badly affected in terms of access, as well as mature students and part-time applicants.
"Since many mature and part-time students come from less advantaged backgrounds this is an issue we must address if we are to ensure fair access to university for all," Hutton said.
The poll by the Sutton Trust found that 53% supported cutting tuition fees for those from disadvantaged backgrounds, while 25% opposed the move.
Jonathan Simons, head of education at the Policy Exchange thinktank, said lower tuition fees for those from disadvantaged backgrounds was "deeply misguided".
"The whole point of the fees is that they are not paid up front but instead after university, dependant on the graduate's – not their family's – income. Under this model, a charity worker from a wealthy family would pay back far more money than a city trader from a working class background. This does not seem a very sensible repayment model," Simons said.
The analysis comes two days before A-level results are published on Thursday, dictating the university destinations of hundreds of thousands of teenagers, amid uncertainty about the overall results achieved by this year's crop of sixth formers.
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