Universities will not be able to recruit graduates from less privileged backgrounds unless extra funding is provided, according to a leading trade union. The Higher Education Statistics Authority (HESA) revealed last month that 64 per cent of universities failed to meet targets for enrolling disadvantaged students in 2008-09. Paul Cottrell, national head of policy at the University and College Union, suggested that more money must be pumped in and used wisely if higher education establishments are to improve in this area. "An awful lot of money has been put into all of those schemes but the output, in terms of getting more poor students into higher education, seems to have been very marginal at best," he said. Mr Cottrell was responding to claims by the Sutton Trust earlier this week that universities should receive a 'bounty' fund in order to finance outreach schemes for recruiting Britons from less wealthy backgrounds. The group suggested that the funds could be made available by top-slicing the teaching grant, but Mr Cottrell warned that this would simply reduce the quality of teaching on offer. According to the HESA statistics, 88.5 per cent of UK university entrants were from state schools in 2008-09, representing a rise of 0.5 per cent from the previous year.
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