cart first. then horses.

I am still not amused about what the telegraph is making out to be the possibility of social engineering of university admissions.

I should have thought it was obvious. University is for bright people. Universities should be selecting the best people for their courses, not trying to admit some pre determined quota of people due to social/racial/sex reasons.

If you find that some section of society are under represented at university, then perhaps the right thing would be to teach them to spell/count (depending on whether you want them to do English or Engineering of course) and make it so that they can afford to go.

Then again, maybe you should re assess the point of making them pay to just get a worthless bit of paper.