When applications rates to University go down, it is not wholly unfair to say that something has probably gone up. It might be criteria for entry, tuition fees, literacy figures, failures in school examinations, or the perception that 'Uni' is simply not all it is cranked up to be - trust me it is not.

As a general rule of thumb however, applications usually go down when the cost of applying goes up. It is not necessarily financial cost, although in the UK this is a paramount consideration. However cost, as a universal factor, is what we are probably best focusing on.

If I were to hazard a guess, I would guess that of the social strata who are included in the 13% application drop, a similar figure would be seen as regards their social status. That is; the 13% drop is likely to reflect that applications dropped amongst the 13% of potential students who are in the bottom 13% of the wealth spectrum - the poorest in other words.

Now I am not going to get all leftist on this issue - not being able to afford to go to University is hardly in the same category of deprivation as not being able to find a grain of rice to feed a genuinely starving child, whose school is the hell of famine and drought; however, it is necessary to spotlight, yet again, that social status (unless I am completely off beam about applications dropping amongst the socially/financially poorest 13% ), is the platform from which our education system rises.

Education always seems to favour the rich.

The trouble is, I am not sure intelligence, potential, wisdom, social betterment and humanity favour the rich. This means education, whilst favouring the rich is currently dis-favouring humanity as a whole.

I am not attacking the rich; they are an easy and therefore lazy target upon which to pin our problems. We give them as much money as they take, and if as I just posited, intelligence, potential, wisdom, social betterment and humanity do not favour them, then all they have is wealth. God help them if money becomes worthless.

I am addressing the mind-numbing practice of suggesting wealth and intelligence are linked; that as long as the rich can afford to go to uni, all is future-proof. It is not.

Nature has seen to it that progress, evolution, social enhancement; whatever you call it, is not fuelled by conceptual wealth symbolised by pieces of paper. It recognised concepts and paper lack nutrition. It has however graced the broad spectrum of humanity with the very potential that a University can draw out.

Now being rich is not an indicator of stupidity - that is as absurd as saying that poverty is the sign of wisdom. This is why our education system ought to be calibrated so as to favour the broad spectrum of humanity. The best University would see the Wall Street billionaire's son sitting alongside the hopefully saved famine victim discussing how they can both be human; yet one is spending pocket money whilst the other is barely alive? - That would be an education.

It is not so much the drop in University applications that ought concern us, as the rise, yet again of the University for the monied mentality. Until the system favours us all, it disfavours all of us; rich, poor or middle class - whatever that means. We either have the money we need or we don't.

The real drop is not in applications; but in human progress.