Every category in Europe that has suffered disadvantage, has suffered at universities, now or in the past. And it is not getting better. Whatever the inequalities in society, universities amplify them, despite 50 years of government policy to improve access. The reverse is also true. Universities breed a sense of elite, because they are for the elite.
European universities are the traditional home of elite associations, for young people.
Most people in Europe do not even know of the existence of these associations, or their importance for access to social elites. One Amsterdam student, Marcia Valkenhof, was interviewed by the university newspaper. She will use the scholarship for the elite College of Europe in Belgium, her thesis is about European Union foreign policy. Earlier, she had completed a faculty exchange programme in San Francisco, and attended a peace research summer school in Norway. Then she had worked as stagiaire at the Atlantic Commission in Den Haag, and then at the Delegation of the European Union at the United Nations.