Collegiate systems make the Oxbridge admissions process “unfair” for applicants, teachers, and schools, according to a new report by the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI).

The report, titled ’Fairer for All: Towards a Centralised Model of Admissions and Access at Oxford and Cambridge’, highlights disparities in widening participation funding and admissions practices between colleges, including entry requirements and interview processes.

Using Freedom of Information request data, HEPI found that some colleges allocate up to 12 times more funding to widening participation than others.

Although Oxford and Cambridge both run centrally organised initiatives, including Oxford’s BeUNIQ scheme and the Apply: Cambridge programme, most outreach work is still organised by individual colleges.

HEPI’s analysis suggests that this decentralisation leads to uneven coverage of geographical areas through outreach programmes. While every London borough is linked to a Cambridge college, a single college, Corpus Christi, is responsible for outreach for the entirety of Northern Ireland.

The report also found that access teams are often small relative to the geographical areas they are expected to cover. Gonville and Caius, for instance, is assigned to seven London boroughs, as well as overseeing outreach for Hertfordshire and Norfolk.

HEPI’s report also notes that, although both Oxford and Cambridge have access and participation plans, individual colleges are not legally bound by them.

Once students arrive at Cambridge, financial support also varies widely. While Lucy Cavendish offers students a rent bursary of up to £1,500, Trinity College provides double that amount, with maintenance grants of £3,000 for students eligible for the Cambridge Bursary Scheme.

Based on the report’s findings, HEPI is advocating for greater consistency in admissions requirements and interview processes. The think tank recommends a fully centralised system where the central university handles admissions processes in the long-term. In the short-term, the report argues for standardising admissions processes across colleges.

The report also proposes a system in which interviews would be conducted by “cross-college” panels, and candidates would only be assigned to a college after an offer has been made.

The report’s author, Charlotte Armstrong, drew on her experiences working as a Schools Liaison Officer at Queens’ College when producing the report. Armstrong said that stronger communication between colleges could reduce duplication in outreach work, and make widening participation campaigns more effective.