87. ADMISSION IMPOSSIBLE: opening up our universities

Hello! Private school pupils are 7x as likely to get a place at Oxford or Cambridge as those from state comprehensives. But why does access to the UK’s top universities matter and what can we do to widen it? This week Vee Kativhu tells us her story of (finally) applying to Oxford’s Lady Margaret Hall on their new foundation year scheme. Then academics Vikki Boliver and Lee Elliot Major talk us through solutions to overhaul university admissions - from radical contextual offers to a lottery system to ‘comprehensive universities’.

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Comedian Steve N Allen joins us to advocate for status symbol taxes, banning handles on push doors, and tries to save science education before it gets taken