Fears over the high cost of living in Oxford are hampering the University's efforts to attract more Students from the north, writes Madeleine Pennell.
Only 16 per cent of first-year students at Oxford University this year are from the north and north-west.
In this academic year's applications, Scotland fielded only two per cent of new students and Wales less than four per cent, while Greater London and the south-east made up 42 per cent of this year's intake. A further ten per cent of new entrants came from the south-west. Oxford University hired Old Trafford, home of Manchester United, for its first large recruitment conference in the north.
But the high cost of living in the south, coupled with student loans and fees are putting off students from the north.
John Dunford, General Secretary of the Secondary Heads' Association, said many schools had to convince students not just that they would fit in at Oxbridge but that they could afford it.
He said: "Students have increasingly taken into account their perceptions of the high cost of living at universities in the south."
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