The Equity Illusion: Why Lowering Standards Doesn’t Help the Disadvantaged

Fairness is not about everyone getting the same outcome. It’s about everyone having a fair chance to reach their potential.

In the eternal tug-of-war between fairness and standards, fairness has developed a neat little trick: redefine the standard.

According to a recent article in a national newspaper, nearly a third of university applicants had their entrance scores boosted under “equity and disadvantage” provisions. In practical terms, this means around 30 per cent of students were admitted not based on their actual achievements, but on what they might have accomplished had life been more cooperative.

This is a well-intentioned gesture. The instinct to correct injustice by tweaking results is an old one, and seductive. After all, who wants to argue against giving someone a break if they’ve had a rough time of it? But we ought to pause and consider what we’re really doing when we fiddle with the scoreboard. Are we helping people succeed, or merely making it look as though they have?

This isn’t a hypothetical debate. Years ago, I was involved in a government-commissioned review of university admissions in England, where similar concerns were raised. The focus then—sensibly—was not on lowering admissions thresholds, but on lifting people up to meet them. The review itself was later reviewed with similar conclusions.

There is, of course, a deeper truth beneath the equity debate. Life is not a footrace; we don’t all start from the same line. Some students grow up with stability, resources, and encouragement; others face poverty, chaos, or cultural barriers. Some struggle with illness or trauma. These are not minor differences, and they deserve to be taken seriously. But seriousness requires more than sympathy. It requires real support, the sort that raises people up, rather than bending the world downward to meet them.

What might this look like in practice?

Start with early intervention. The real inequities in education emerge long before university, often by Year 3 or 4, when literacy and numeracy gaps become entrenched. A serious equity agenda would invest in high-quality school programmes and evidence-based reading instruction, especially in disadvantaged areas. It would fund proven teaching interventions—those shown to improve learning outcomes.

It would also include well-run summer schools and academic enrichment programmes for capable students from underrepresented backgrounds. These aren’t just sticking band-aid; they’re ramps. They give students from under-resourced schools or unstable homes a structured environment in which to learn, revise, and catch up. They say, “You can do this,” instead of whispering, “You probably can’t, but we’ll let you in anyway.”

There are also subtler forms of support: mentoring, career guidance, university visits, and help with university applications. The cultural capital that middle-class students often take for granted—how to speak in an interview, how to ask for help—isn’t universally distributed. Teaching these things isn’t cheating. It’s justice.

What we mustn’t do is confuse compensation with preparation. Giving someone a few extra admissions points because they were disadvantaged doesn’t change what they know or how well they can reason. It simply means they now enter university with a steeper hill to climb. The risk is that we’ve set them up not for opportunity, but for failure, just at a later, more expensive stage.

And what about those already inside the system? We see similar instincts in classroom assessments: students whose performance suffers due to illness or stress are often granted “special consideration” or grade adjustments. Again, the impulse is kind. But the better response is to offer support—extensions, counselling, or a second attempt—not to pretend the illness didn’t affect performance and inflate the result to match expectations.

Some will argue this is callous. On the contrary, it is respectful. It respects students’ ability to rise, and respects the standards we’ve set. It’s the same principle we apply in aviation or medicine, or bridge-building. If someone has had a tough time, we don’t let that person become a pilot with a lower score on the flight test. We help those who need extra training until they can pass the same test as everyone else. Why should intellectual rigour be different?

There is a well-meaning kind of pessimism behind equity-score inflation: the quiet belief that some people just can’t get there, so we’ll give them a leg up and hope for the best. But a society that takes equity seriously should be fiercely ambitious for the disadvantaged. It should want them to succeed not through allowances, but through achievement.

The good news is that this is possible. Some of the most successful access programmes have shown that with enough structure and encouragement, students from underrepresented backgrounds can thrive, not just enter university, but excel. And they don’t need a lower bar to do it. They need adequate preparation.

In the end, fairness is not about everyone getting the same outcome. It’s about everyone having a fair chance to reach their potential. That’s not achieved by lowering the ladder, but by ensuring everyone gets the opportunity to climb it.