These schemes have proliferated as UK universities scrambled to exploit a dwindling resource of fee-paying 18-year-olds. Unfortunately, they may have the predictable effect of narrowing rather than widening access. Success breeds success for the more privileged but without the need to achieve the actual grades required from other, less privileged, students. More...

The equal rights campaigner and former Labour politician Trevor Phillips has criticised the University of Cambridge’s “bizarre” decision to appoint a white academic as head of a study into the institution’s historical links with slavery. More...

An education minister has attacked his own government’s policies of expanding access to higher education, saying it is “lunacy” and “madness” to allow students with low A-level grades into university. More...

A new academic role will investigate its history after estimates that 85% of original funding came from slavery. More...

It may well turn out that in the past Cambridge University profited from colonial slavery (Cambridge University investigates its historical links with slave trade, 30 April), but it can also be argued that the university was in fact instrumental in ending the slave trade. More...

A coroner has called for universities to destigmatise mental health issues after concluding that a student took his own life after facing dismissal from his course and the prospect of losing his accommodation. More...

The National Union of Students and the Universities UK group calls, in a joint report, for vice-chancellors and principals to show “strong leadership” to close the gap and ensure that their campuses encourage racially diverse workforces and student bodies. More...

Black, Asian and minority ethnic students are less likely to get a top degree than white students. This must end. More...

The University of Cambridge has been criticised for hosting a self-proclaimed anti-feminist group that staff claim have harassed female academics and make people feel unsafe on campus. More...

A university student fell to his death from a bridge after being dismissed from his course and told he would have to leave his accommodation, an inquest has heard. More...