So the A-level results are out. Some, like royal pin-up Prince William, have done well, their place at the university of their choice assured.

But for others whose grades didn't meet the standards expected, a place at university can only be found through clearing - the tumultuous hell of engaged phone lines, frantic worry and snobbish attitudes towards ex-polys.

Except for those who get through clearing via e-mail and the Internet. Their experience of clearing is as idyllic as a young fawn gambolling down a dew-laden hillside.

Well, not quite. But a recent report has highlighted the iniquities that the Internet is introducing into such a vital area of life.

Prime Minister Tony Blair wants everybody to have an email address by 2005.

Sounds great, but where does that actually get us?

Not very far, claims Digital Decisions, the name of the report by Dr Anthony Hesketh from Lancaster University.

Such dreams of equality are, as always, flawed by the basic nature of society.

Yes, everybody will have an email address but, as Dr Hesketh highlights, the socio-economic divide will still play an integral part.

The report splits down prospective student Internet-users into three broad, but easily recognisable, categories: those with real access, quasi access, and the disconnected.

Real access means that students have their own PC, or access to their parents' PC in the home, whereas those with quasi-access have to log on at college, or at a cyber caf, where time and money become very powerful factors.

Moreover, according to Professor Paul Foley, of De Montfort University, the less well-off become quickly disenchanted with the Internet and home use falls quickly. The Internet clearly does not live up to the hype for the MTV generation. It is, after all, an information resource, and not just one vast porn emporium.

So this week, those students going through clearing fall into two clear piles: the middle-class, who log on to daddy's PC, send off their clearing form, jump in the 4x4 and go off to get outrageously drunk at some debauched house party; and the working class, who have to endure engaged phone lines and fraught anxiety as they wait to see what crumbs they can glean from the clearing floor.