[kiplkipl]

That passes the buck on to the university addmissions teams. Then it's the same story with Oxbridge as the antagonists.

Fundamentally it's a hard problem: the admissions require more information than is available. But...

> All this fiasco does is demonstrate how unnecessarily reductive the whole concept is.

...there never really was enough information. This is an important factor IMO. The system has always been unfair, now it's less fair and in a colder, more obvious , more systematic way that resonates with the current political climate around technology. Politically it's hard for this government to get away with standing by a policy that adversely affects poor students in the same way it would have been hard for a left-wing government to institute the current fiscal policy.

>kids

Nit: almost all of them are now legally adults. At university they can look forward to this twilight age where they are treated as an adult when it's about financial obligations and treated as a child when it's their institutions forcing policy upon them.

[TheOtherHobbes]

The Tory line has always been "Work hard and get ahead." It's an outright lie, because the reality has always been "Go to the right school and have the right parents and get ahead."

But much middle class [1] and some working class Tory support still believes in the social status dream, and this fiasco has directly undermined that narrative.

The party is getting huge heat from its base over this, not just because of their future prospects, but because some of them are now wondering if "Work hard and get ahead" has ever been true for them.

[1] Note for the US - in the UK "middle class" specifically means "Highly educated professionals with significant cultural and political capital" not just "People with a degree making decent money."

[jfk13]

> The Tory line has always been "Work hard and get ahead." It's an outright lie, because the reality has always been "Go to the right school and have the right parents and get ahead."

But it's not as simple as that, either. Coincidentally, I just read an obituary of John Hume, who was born into poverty in Derry and rose -- through education and hard work -- to become a leading politician and a Nobel prize winner.

https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/john-hume-o...

[maybeOneDay]

A single or few data point(s) of less privileged people managing to work hard and become hugely successful is not a valid argument against:

> It's an outright lie, because the reality has always been "Go to the right school and have the right parents and get ahead."

There have been and will always be exceptions, cherry picking a few of these is a form of straw man.