A university has been praised for the work it does to increase the number of students who would not normally go into higher education.

For the fourth year running, the University of Leicester has exceeded its benchmarks for attracting entrants from state schools and admitting students from lower socio-economic backgrounds.

Last academic year 91.4 per cent of Leicester's undergraduate intake was from state schools or colleges, beating its benchmark by 8.1 percentage points.

Vice-Chancellor Professor Bob Burgess said: "To be truly counted as elite in the 21st century, a university must be able to demonstrate a commitment to and success in achieving targets for widening participation, and provide a high quality student experience as demonstrated by student satisfaction ratings.

"Leicester is currently the only university that can tick all of these boxes."

Jonathan Clapham, Leicester's head of student recruitment, said the success in widening participation had been accompanied by an increase in the standards of students entering the university.

He said: "It is proof, if it were needed, that far from leading to 'dumbing down', widening participation is about attracting the best and brightest, from whichever background they may come.

Mr Clapham said Leicester's continuing progress in this area was partly due to an embedded culture of openness, fair access, and accessibility.

He said: "We have embedded widening participation into the planning process of every department, and we have a clear and consistent policy of fair access in admissions."