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It is a scandal that ethnic minority kids are more likely to go to university than white ones


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1:25PM GMT 10 Nov 2015

 

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has just produced some research that is borders on the jaw-dropping, the sort of stuff that should cause everyone remotely interested in politics, society, education and simple fairness to stop and think.

The headline finding is that ethnic minority kids are more likely to go to university than white British ones. And that’s from any minority group, not an aggregate of all minorities. So a black British kid of African background (56.6 per cent) is more likely to go to university than a white one (32.6 per cent). A British Pakistani kid (44.7 per cent) is more likely to go to university than a white kid. And so on.

This is great news, wholly positive stuff, the sort of thing that should make everyone in Britain proud. It says we’ve created the sort of society where racism and prejudice do not prevent kids who just happen not be white from getting a higher education and all the opportunities that entails.

 

 

"White working-class kids are missing out on a university education, which strongly correlates with increased lifetime earnings, overall health and life expectancy. Simply, they are living poorer, shorter lives."
 
 

It’s also deeply troubling. Because the overall participation figure for the white British group is being skewed, dragged down by the appalling underperformance of the poorest white British kids. Only 13 per cent of the poorest white British kids go to university. By contrast, 53 per cent of the poorest British Indian kids go to university; 30 per cent of the poorest Black Caribbean kids go to university.

Or look at the comparison between the poorest white kids and the richest: 13 per cent of poor white kids go to university, while 55 per cent of the richest do.

IFS-Chart_3496663b.jpg  Photo: The IFS

No matter how you slice the figures, this is a scandal. Thousands of white working-class kids are missing out on a university education, which strongly correlates with increased lifetime earnings, overall health and life expectancy. Simply, they are living poorer, shorter lives.

And it’s not because they do worse at school than non-white peers. As the IFS notes, ethnic minority kids actually tend to have poorer results. Something other than exam results is keeping poor white kids out of university. The IFS calls this an “unexplained difference” and suggests more research to explain what is holding back those children.

I have no data, but I can offer one explanation based on personal experience. I went to a comprehensive school in Northumberland, where the (almost entirely white) pupils included a fair number who would fall into what the IFS calls the lowest socio-economic quintile, otherwise known as poor kids, the children of parents on benefits or doing low-paid manual work.

 

I went to university, and as a result I write things like this for a living. Many of those kids from my school didn’t. It wasn’t because they weren’t bright enough: some of them were sharper and smarter than many of the middle-class and privately educated people I met at university and after. Nor was it because our bog-standard comprehensive failed them: our exam results were, on the whole, pretty good, and included some truly impressive performances, especially in maths. Some of my contemporaries now earn squillions in the City, in part because of the mathematical abilities they developed at our ordinary school.

Something else stopped the clever poor white kids from my school going to university: belief. They just didn’t believe it was for them. University was for other people, not something they did. No one they knew had been, so they didn’t understand the long-term benefits, couldn’t properly compare the value over time of a degree compared to the immediate value of getting a job at 16 or 18 and starting to earn immediately.

 

I nearly didn’t either: offered a job paying almost £12,000 a year, I thought about accepting. Among my middle-class university friends, I don't know anyone who ever considered such a thing: for them, higher education was assumed, the default setting. It was nothing special, just what people like them did.

That was 1994, literally a generation ago. I’d hoped that things had changed, but the IFS study is based on those taking their GCSEs in 2007-08, who could have gone to university at age 18 in 2010-11. The same invisible barriers are still preventing poor white kids going to university and giving themselves options about how and where to live and work and be.

I repeat: this is a scandal, one that does not get the attention it deserves.

It is an unabashed positive that years of collective and individual effort has meant that non-white kids, even the poorest, face no significant obstacle to getting a higher education if they want one. And there is no evidence to show, as some may suspect, that those efforts have come at the expense of white children: aspiration is not a zero-sum game; encouraging and helping one person does not discourage and hinder another.

But one thing is clear, shown starkly and shockingly in those IFS figures: we now need the same effort to help poor white kids. Please.

map_3214970b.jpg

 

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/11986204/It-is-a-scandal-that-ethnic-minority-kids-are-more-likely-to-go-to-university-than-white-ones.html

 

8-)

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Lol.

 

Most White kids, don't go University unless its a job REQUIREMENT. For example to be a doctor...

 

But otherwise, why would they need too? Is the general feeling... Get a job, work your way up, and by the time those monkeys are out with their degree, you will have experience and get all their jobs.

 

Black kids go cos we are told it's a CV requirement, and the only way out.

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Lol.

 

Most White kids, don't go University unless its a job REQUIREMENT. For example to be a doctor...

 

But otherwise, why would they need too? Is the general feeling... Get a job, work your way up, and by the time those monkeys are out with their degree, you will have experience and get all their jobs.

 

Black kids go cos we are told it's a CV requirement, and the only way out.

 

 

Lol what a load of shit.

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Lol.

Most White kids, don't go University unless its a job REQUIREMENT. For example to be a doctor...

But otherwise, why would they need too? Is the general feeling... Get a job, work your way up, and by the time those monkeys are out with their degree, you will have experience and get all their jobs.

Black kids go cos we are told it's a CV requirement, and the only way out.

:rofl:

Seek help

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Lol.

 

Most White kids, don't go University unless its a job REQUIREMENT. For example to be a doctor...

 

But otherwise, why would they need too? Is the general feeling... Get a job, work your way up, and by the time those monkeys are out with their degree, you will have experience and get all their jobs.

 

Black kids go cos we are told it's a CV requirement, and the only way out.

As a white guy who went to university purely as I saw it as a CV requirement for higher paying jobs.

I disagree.

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Guest babatundestacks

Lol.

 

Most White kids, don't go University unless its a job REQUIREMENT. For example to be a doctor...

 

But otherwise, why would they need too? Is the general feeling... Get a job, work your way up, and by the time those monkeys are out with their degree, you will have experience and get all their jobs.

 

Black kids go cos we are told it's a CV requirement, and the only way out.

 

 

Lol what a load of sh*t.

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I think people who go university have it instilled in them

The people I know who went university who’s parents may not be as affluent as others their parents pumped it into their head about education (Black, white, Asian)

I grew up around allot of middle class Asian/whites who’s parents are professionals they all went to university as that is the standard in their households.

My working class friends white/black/Asian who went straight into employment or whatever, Education did not seem as important to them or their familys

I think it has to do with how you are brought up.

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I think people who go university have it instilled in them

The people I know who went university who’s parents may not be as affluent as others their parents pumped it into their head about education (Black, white, Asian)

I grew up around allot of middle class Asian/whites who’s parents are professionals they all went to university as that is the standard in their households.

My working class friends white/black/Asian who went straight into employment or whatever, Education did not seem as important to them or their familys

I think it has to do with how you are brought up.

Agree

Small handful of people who do it off their own backs

For me it was an deeply held expectation from my school and entire family

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Lol.

Most White kids, don't go University unless its a job REQUIREMENT. For example to be a doctor...

But otherwise, why would they need too? Is the general feeling... Get a job, work your way up, and by the time those monkeys are out with their degree, you will have experience and get all their jobs.

Black kids go cos we are told it's a CV requirement, and the only way out.

Dont know whats so absurd about this, we know its true.

Alot of working class white boys dont bother with college or a-levels they start apprenticeships or get jobs from 16yrs old and work there way up.

Im not saying it in a negative way, in the long run they end up more properous than the people who went uni unless its medicine, dentistry etc etc

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Lol.

 

Most White kids, don't go University unless its a job REQUIREMENT. For example to be a doctor...

 

But otherwise, why would they need too? Is the general feeling... Get a job, work your way up, and by the time those monkeys are out with their degree, you will have experience and get all their jobs.

 

Black kids go cos we are told it's a CV requirement, and the only way out.

As a white guy who went to university purely as I saw it as a CV requirement for higher paying jobs.

I disagree.

 

 

What is your job?

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Lol.

Most White kids, don't go University unless its a job REQUIREMENT. For example to be a doctor...

But otherwise, why would they need too? Is the general feeling... Get a job, work your way up, and by the time those monkeys are out with their degree, you will have experience and get all their jobs.

Black kids go cos we are told it's a CV requirement, and the only way out.

Dont know whats so absurd about this, we know its true.

Alot of working class white boys dont bother with college or a-levels they start apprenticeships or get jobs from 16yrs old and work there way up.

Im not saying it in a negative way, in the long run they end up more properous than the people who went uni unless its medicine, dentistry etc etc

 

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Tbf black kids can get apprenticeships/ start working from 16

In london anyway.

Anywhere else I'm not too sure.

The reason why black African kids go to uni more is because its instilled from the parents that it's the only way to succeed in life. This is because most of them didn't have the opportunity to go to uni themselves so they push thhier children to.

Little do they know that if Kwame went to work in a bank from 16 he could very much end up being the manager is 5 years time

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What I said wasn't a race topic or a look at us poor blacks being hard done by again...

 

It was a comment that even white working class males will tell you...

 

If I asked them, did they go Uni or do they want their kids to go... Many would mock the idea of them going University or pushing their kids to go... "Fuck gettting that debt", "everybody I know that went Uni has fuck all" is what I would hear...

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Tbf black kids can get apprenticeships/ start working from 16

In london anyway.

 

 

While I agree now, I think its changed a lot now for the better, due to this country changing a lot.

 

But back when I was 18, I couldn't get no apprenticeship or work experience in a record label whatsoever...

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Tbf black kids can get apprenticeships/ start working from 16

In london anyway.

Anywhere else I'm not too sure.

The reason why black African kids go to uni more is because its instilled from the parents that it's the only way to succeed in life. This is because most of them didn't have the opportunity to go to uni themselves so they push thhier children to.

Little do they know that if Kwame went to work in a bank from 16 he could very much end up being the manager is 5 years time

True but at the same time, many companies abuse the system and is a means of cheap labour for some.

However there are definitely some good ones out there :Y:

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A lot of people in this thread go on as if white people cannot be poor and disadvantaged, and are just going on anecdotes of the white boys they knew/ see. Or they give an agency to white working class people that they normally wouldn't give to other groups.

 

A lot of you should visit some areas in northern england, wales, scotland. These areas are extremely economically despressed and have been since the 70s. The heavy industries, which used to employ most working class white people, are largely thing of the past. Add to that the huge influx of eastern european workers have depressed wages. Most people don't have any help to start up their own ventures there either.

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a lot of these blax who end up at russell group unis r middle class themselves

 

usually the naija man or  zims whose dads a doctor or something

 

Exactly but this is the type of person the Government helps more than the lad whose dad was a steel worker and grew up in a council house in Middlesbrough

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Lol.

 

Most White kids, don't go University unless its a job REQUIREMENT. For example to be a doctor...

 

But otherwise, why would they need too? Is the general feeling... Get a job, work your way up, and by the time those monkeys are out with their degree, you will have experience and get all their jobs.

 

Black kids go cos we are told it's a CV requirement, and the only way out.

As a white guy who went to university purely as I saw it as a CV requirement for higher paying jobs.

I disagree.

 

 

What is your job?

 

 

I.T - Windows Sysadmin

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