Universities urged to accept lower grades for poor students

Students from disadvantaged backgrounds should be allowed into university with lower grades than their privileged rivals, the government adviser who is leading the official inquiry into university admissions will urge.

Steven Schwartz, vice-chancellor of Brunel University, will give his backing to the practice of lower offers for poorer students in the annual Oxford, Cambridge and Royal Society of Arts (RSA) lecture in London tonight.

But he will also signal that state school pupils should not have an automatic advantage over their independent sector rivals, warning: "Not every state school student is disadvantaged and not every independent school student is advantaged."

He will also call for the creation of a national university entrance exam, saying that poorer students were often deterred by the bespoke tests now set by the best institutions.

Professor Schwartz will tell the RSA that A-level grades did not necessarily reflect students' true abilities. He will say: "A candidate who struggled through a poor school and achieved a B at A-level may have just as much potential for higher education as an A-scoring candidate who was better supported at a middle-class school." Most submissions to his inquiry had supported his view that students' backgrounds should be taken into account. But many also argued that universities "go too far" by automatically giving lower offers to students from state schools.

Professor Schwartz will say: "Most people accept that it is necessary to consider a person's background. But if we are going to be fair, it is important how we do this. I believe that admission decisions should be based on an evaluation of each individual applicant, and not automatically biased towards or against a particular group."He will call for university admissions to become more transparent and for unsuccessful candidates to be told why they did not win a place.