Liv-rah-pool Uni

New data has shown Liverpool Uni is 24th in the country for numbers of privately educated students.

With only 14.3% of students coming from private schools, that means there’s fewer rahs at UoL than at any other Russell Group university.

Tattersall shirts, Hollister and gravity-defying hair … They’re clearly not Liverpool students

Topping the table – to the surprise of absolutely nobody – is Oxford, with a whopping 46.6% of students coming from private schools, closely followed by Cambridge and Durham. It’s no coincidence that these relatively small cities all have Jack Wills shops.

Away from the world of elite unis, the difference in background amongst Liverpool students gets even more obvious – Among the 25 most selective unis in England, Liverpool was in the Top 5 for numbers of students who were on free school meals.

Although only 3.1% of Liverpool students had free meals at school, it’s a high number compared to the rest of the Russell Group.

Also in the Top 5 were typically ‘posh’ unis, like King’s, LSE and UCL.

Turns out UoL isn’t as posh as the stereotype

Revealingly, this is a higher figure than some less selective unis outside of big cities – places like Royal Holloway, York St John and Lancaster have far fewer students who took free school meals.

The boffins behind this study put it down to unis in big cities being more inclusive, but we all know in Liverpool it’s just down to the legendary Scouse hospitality.

Although the data compiled by The Guardian only covers English unis from 2005-2007, it tells us a lot about the social make-up of the country’s universities – and also explains why Liverpool is seen as the least Russell-Groupish of all the Russell Group unis. We’re just too salt of the earth here in Liverpool.

Does this mean that the long-running JMU joke about Uni Of students being posh might finally be put to bed? Probably not, but the stats are interesting.

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