Here's a classic from the BBC...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-48121840
Unis need to tackle the "attainment gap" in ethnicities, because white students are, on average, more likely to get a 1st or 2:1. Notice how they chuck all non white groups under the "BAME" headline? Apparently 81% of white students achieved this level, compared with 68% of BAME students...so obviously a problem with the Unis.
No link to the report, in case you wanted to actually study it yourself. And Unis have now got a target to eliminate the gap by 2024/25. I can't find the report anywhere, but I found this one from 2015/16
https://www.ecu.ac.uk/guidance-resources/student-recruitment-retention-attainment/student-attainment/degree-attainment-gaps/
So, students of Chinese origin were actually at 72.2% for the top two grades, compared with white students (in that year) being at 78.8%. Indian students were at 70.7%.
So not quite the gap that it looks when you just put every single group bar white people under the "BAME" heading. Also...this is interesting from the report...
"Notably, the BME degree attainment gap is narrower for those studying science, engineering and technology (SET) subjects than those studying non-SET subjects."
And then this...
"Minority ethnic students comprise nearly 20% of the student population..."
So BAME students make up 20% of the Uni population, and yet in the UK they only account for around 14% of the population, so they are over represented in further education, and white people are under represented. Maybe, this means that a greater proportion of white people who are not academic, don't go to Uni...but take up vocations, and therefore a larger percentage of BAME students who are not really cut out for Uni do go there anyway, perhaps due to parental pressure or the belief that it is necessary.
That is one possible explanation off the top of my head as to how a gap could exist through nothing other than the fact that BAME students are over represented in numbers and whites the reverse.
In addition, if you're not very academic, what degree will you choose? Hmm...not STEM is it? Probably not English or Law, or History...it's going to be media studies or gender studies or something that seems more accessible and less cut and dry. So it's pretty telling that in STEM fields the gap is lower still...in fact, they don't even report it, why? Maybe in maths, we're seeing Chinese students ahead of white? Maybe in chemistry, Indian students are dead level with white...we don't know, as they refer to it, but don't give numbers.
There are more males of Uni age in the UK than females, and yet last year 98,000 more young women applied to Uni than men. Shock horror.
According to the data in this report from 2008, by the age of 19, of those in Higher Education....for white people it was 39% and for Ethnic minorities it was 60%.
https://dera.ioe.ac.uk/8717/1/DIUS-RR-08-14.pdf (page 23 of the report).
But you know....racist etc.