As Oxford and Cambridge's admissions policies come under fire, Stephen Lewis says they should follow York University's lead and reach out to those who traditionally shun

higher education

IF there's one thing that annoys Andrew Winsor about Oxbridge, it's the fact that students in York University's politics department who failed to get in there never stop moaning about the fact.

Like his fellow second-year politics student Chris White, he feels York's politics department is first rate - and that the Oxbridge rejects who came there as a second choice devalue the course by their carping.

"This was my first choice," says Andrew, who got an A, B and C at A level from a Newcastle comprehensive before coming to York. "I never had a particular desire to go to Oxbridge. It may be only a perception, but I still have an image of the type of people that go there as being not those with whom I want to spend three or four years of my life."

That's an image Oxbridge is going to have to work hard to change if the two 'elite' universities genuinely want to widen access to a broader section of the population. OK, so Oxford - the particular subject of Chancellor Gordon Brown's recent venom - now takes more than 50 per cent of its students from state schools. There are plenty of people around - 23-year-old York investment consultant Mark Anderson among them - who will attest to the fact that the two universities don't discriminate against people by virtue of their class or educational background.

Mark won a place to study English at Peterhouse College, Cambridge after getting three As and a B at A level from Brayton High School. He says he was not aware of being discriminated against.

But the fact remains many potential applicants are put off by the perceived elitism of Oxford and Cambridge.

Charlie Stokes, now in the third year of her archaeology degree at York, says she did consider applying to Oxbridge - but decided not to, convinced she wouldn't stand a chance.

"My background is working class, and I have an accent," she says. "I think it is as simple as that."

York has no such image problems - despite its growing reputation as one of Britain's top universities.

Almost 80 per cent of undergraduate students at the university come from state schools - and efforts are continuing to widen the net still further.

It's not as simple as just a state school/ public school divide, though, says director of admissions Connie Cullen. What universities, including York, have to do is reach out to people who may never have thought of going to university at all - and persuade them that higher education really does have something to offer.

"We need to look at a whole range of able youngsters who don't even think about coming to university," she says. "They may be from families where there is no tradition of university, or they may have no role models."

Youngsters from such backgrounds often have little understanding of what a university degree actually means, she says. They often think the only reason for studying a degree in history is if you wanted to be a historian - and so felt it wasn't for them. "They don't realise that a university education improves you and your opportunities across the board."

Another group the university is keen to target is mature students - people who perhaps didn't excel academically when at school but now feel the time is right to get some better qualifications.

Reaching out to such groups, Connie admits, is not easy. The university hopes to build on its 'outreach' programmes, where students and university representatives visit schools and colleges, and invite potential applicants to come to open days. She says more needs to be done to reach potential applicants when they are much younger - 14 or 15 say - and get across the message: 'It could be you'.

An extra £210,000 of Government money has been made available to share between York and the six other universities in the York/Humber region for these outreach schemes.

But there are real problems to broadening access to higher education: not least of them the scrapping of student grants. It is something students like Charlie, Andrew and Chris feel particularly bitter about. Connie Cullen herself admits that by the time they graduate many students could soon be running up debts of between £10,000 and £15,000. They may be cheap debts, with low interest payments and lengthy repayment terms, but that is still a big deterrent, she says - especially for those who don't see university as a natural choice. And those are precisely the people universities like York want to be reaching out to.

PICTURE: York University students Chris White, left, Charlie Stokes and Andrew Winsor discuss admissions policies