A new government policy will require universities to publish data on the gender, ethnic background and socio-economic class of all students in an effort to diversify student populations.
David Cameron announced the plans on January 31 in the wake of scrapping grants and increasing the cap on tuition fees in the last budget.
The Prime Minister, who studied at Eton College and Oxford University, said: “Too many in our country are held back, often invisibly, because of their background or the colour of their skin.”
He added: “I believe this new transparency duty offers a real chance to help nudge universities into making the right choices and reaching out in the right ways.”
White working class males are the most underrepresented group at British universities with only 1 in 10 in higher education.
At the very top of the chain black students face similar constraints with only 24 black students in the 2014 Oxford University intake.