Oxford is still lagging behind other UK universities in the recruitment of students from ethnic minority backgrounds.

A Race for Opportunity report from 2007-8 shows that 16% of students from the UK studying for degrees were from a black, Asian or ethnic minority background. This is higher than the proportion of people from ethnic minority backgrounds in the general 18-24-year-old population, which is 14.2%.

At Russell Group universities overall, the proportion of students from an ethnic minority background was only 14.1%. However, at Oxford, the percentage of students from an ethnic minority background is only 11.1%. At Cambridge the percentage is even lower, at 10.5%.