The Sunday Times has revealed that the University of Edinburgh has the lowest admittance of black students of all Russell Group universities.
Nationally, around three per cent of the British public identifies as black, whereas the University of Edinburgh’s student body is made up of only 0.7 per cent black students.
The Russell Group prides itself on representing “world-class universities [that] play an important part in the intellectual life of the UK and have huge social, economic and cultural impacts locally, across the UK and around the globe.”
Other Russell Group universities had much better admittance of black students, Queen Mary University of London admitted almost nine per cent and King’s College London admitted a little over seven per cent.
Universities such as Edinburgh, Oxford, and Cambridge have failed to admit a higher percentage of black students and yet are still classified as “world-class universities”, despite failing to admit a more diverse student body.
In defence of the low numbers in overall diversity, The Russell Group commented that: “The root causes of under-representation are complex and a wide range of factors need to be taken into account to fully understand them.
“Our universities are working tirelessly to encourage bright candidates to apply as we want talented, able students from all backgrounds to know that a place at our universities is well within reach.”
Image: Rosie Duckworth / Photographer