Oxford and Cambridge universities have failed to get into the top three in the Times‘s prestigious annual university ranking for the first time, with experts blaming “misguided attempts at equality”. The Mail has more.
The Times and the Sunday Times Good University Guide 2026 placed the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) first for the second year in a row, followed by the University of St Andrews in Scotland second and Durham University in third.
Oxford and Cambridge were joint fourth – the first time neither have held a place in the top three in the 32 years the Times has produced its guide.
Last year Oxford was ranked third, while Cambridge was already sitting at fourth.
Both slipped down last year when the LSE leapt to first place from fourth and St Andrews came second.
Universities have been under pressure in recent years from successive governments to widen their intake to include more students from deprived backgrounds.
Earlier this year, Universities UK – which represents campus bosses including Oxford and Cambridge – unveiled an “action plan” to “boost access” for the “most disadvantaged in society”.
This involved getting more universities to adopt “contextual offers”, meaning lowering entry grades for those who had faced “barriers”.
These include growing up in care, attending a low-attaining school or being from a low-income family.
Offers could be up to three grades lower than the standard requirement, even in competitive areas such as medicine.
Other interventions have included universities being provided data on free school meals to help them select the poorest applicants.
Details of this policy emerged three years ago, when statistics showed poor students had enjoyed a better rate of offers for places than their richer peers.
Professor Alan Smithers, the Director of the Centre for Education and Employment Research at Buckingham University, told the Daily Mail today it was a “very unfortunate political decision to insist that universities take into account social circumstances”.
Blasting the “misguided attempt at equality”, he said: “What has to be understood is it’s not just a matter of intrinsic ability. It’s the quality of education that gives you the platform for higher education.
“Somebody who hasn’t had the opportunity to develop their abilities won’t be as comfortable at university and is very unlikely to achieve as much there as someone who came in from very high-performing achievement at school.”
He added: “Universities have to satisfy their monopoly customer [the Government] and may be doing all sorts of things that go against their better instincts to meet the demands upon them.”
Worth reading in full.
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“Offers could be up to three grades lower than the standard requirement, even in competitive areas such as medicine.”
Which brings to mind:
“…we may say that incompetence, having been standardized, has now become an essential part of professional excellence. We have no longer incompetent professionals, we have professionalized incompetence.”
Paul Feyerabend, “Science in a Free Society”, p. 183.
Good, serves them right.
I’d be amazed if the Professor’s or Students at either could recite the 12 times table.
It does seem that since the socialists (aka Fabian Commies) gained power after WWII it’s been a race to the bottom. First they wrecked our industry, then our government institutions and now the universities.
There was a time when Cambridge used to produce good graduates in useful things like engineering and electronics, but I suppose now that Net Zero has closed down our industry they are no longer needed anyway.
funny how when we had grammar schools bright, deprived children could compete on equal terms with public schools, and they didn’t need false tokenism
Exactly right, I should have gone to a grammar school but was sent to a comprehensive and left with no exam passes asap. I did well achieved principal level and retired at 50. Problem was I then gallivanted around for ten years and had such a good time it nearly killed me. Such is life, I now survive pretty well but I do feel sorry for working class kids, many of them are not self starters are very intelligent and need the discipline of better schools.
The problem is the commies want equality of outcome not opportunity so they lower the bar and everyone gets dragged down. Typical commie trick.
Obviously complete blx because st Andrews should be top.
Dear me.
O tempora, o mores!
(They wouldn’t understand that at the LSE… or at Oxbridge now, I suppose.)
Ho dear, how sad, never mind 😢
Should be reason to sack the management at Ox and Cam. However, for LSE to win anything I suspect the politiucal bias of the panel.
The LSE is little more a hive of lefties, propped up by the globalist billionaires. Its position brings into question the validity of this whole scheme.
‘Rank’ might be an accurate description.
As a previous generation used to reason, and apparently successfully:
“Free, free, LSE
Free it from the bourgeoisie.”
I guess that it’s not the LSE getting better, it’s the fact that the others are worse.
It’s the old Hollywood trick, give out Oscars for the best of this and that despite the fact they were all utter crap. It would be better to just say no awards this year because you are all a bunch of useless losers, their egos won’t allow that of course.
On the bright side some academics are opening other seats of learning which operate on much lower budgets and turn out good results, so all is not lost.