Battlers fail to gain a solid foothold at universities

New analysis suggests universities do not have as many disadvantaged students as they thought, according to equity expert Trevor Gale.<br /><br />On a new measure of socioeconomic status, involving a smaller geographic unit of analysis, these students made up 15.2 per cent of total domestic numbers last year, statistics released by the federal Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations have revealed. The familiar postcode analysis, a cruder measure, had the proportion as 16.2 per cent.