Half of all students who go to Oxford and Cambridge University are coming from schools in the state sector, the latest admissions data has shown, which also indicates that smaller specialist institutions are 100 per cent provided for by state schools.

According to the data released by Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) on admissions for universities, as many as 89.8 per cent of people who have been accepted on degree courses have attended state school. This is a figure on the rise, climbing from the readings of 89.2 per cent and 89.6 per cent in the last two academic years. 

It was also discovered that more state school pupils are going to top universities than ever before. 

Oxford and Cambridge may have their reputations as being full to the brim of people who have attended private schools and have rich heritage, but according to the HESA data, Oxford University now has 55.7 per cent of its new admissions coming from the state sector. 

Cambridge has an even higher proportion of former state school students. The data shows that in the last year, the number of people going to Cambridge who had attended state schools was as high as 61.8 per cent. 

An Oxford University spokesman said: "Oxford has long said that school type is a crude and frequently misleading indicator of disadvantage. 

"That is why in our Access Agreement with the Office for Fair Access (OFFA) we focus on what are arguably more precise - but also more challenging - categories of disadvantage. 

"And measured against these categories we are showing encouraging progress: We have shown consistent improvement since these targets were introduced in 2009, and are on track to meet our targets for students from socio-economically and educationally disadvantaged backgrounds."

Professor Les Ebdon, director of fair access to higher education, said: "It is good to see that there is an ongoing trend of improvement across the HESA performance indicators. For example, there have been rises in the rate of participation among students from less advantaged socio-economic backgrounds, and state schools."