State school pupils getting A-level results today will have less chance of entering the top universities than their privately-educated counterparts, a new report claims.
A study by influential charity the Sutton Trust today shows that the "Laura Spence effect" - named after the Tyneside pupil denied a place at Oxford University four years ago - still holds sway.
The report reveals that comprehensive school leavers who get three As at A-level are almost twice as likely not to take up their rightful place at one of Britain's 13 best universities, including Durham.
And it says privately-educated people can get places at one of the elite institutions with two grades lower than those from the state sector.
Last night the North headteacher who was at the centre of the Laura Spence row said universities had to do a lot more to address inequalities.
But Durham said it had no bias for or against private school pupils, and encouraged applications from state schools and children from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Dr Paul Kelley, Laura Spence's former headteacher at Monkseaton High School, said: "The access targets for the universities are not being met, apart from a couple of exceptions.
"It's obviously high on universities' agendas to have fairer access, but four years on from Laura Spence we still haven't seen progress across the board. Some universities have succeeded in doing something about it: it's not that this can't be addressed."
Analysis of figures from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce) showed that about 3,000 state school leavers who had the grades needed to go to 13 top universities failed to take their places.
Those slots went to the private sector while top performing state school pupils often "settled" for the newer universities.
The class divide has risen since 1997, the report says.
Universities cited were Cambridge, Imperial College London, Oxford, London School of Economics, University College London, York, Warwick, Bristol, Nottingham, St Andrews, Birmingham, Edinburgh and Durham.
But a Durham spokesman said: "The university is committed to attracting the most able applicants, regardless of their background.
"The university is also actively engaged in raising the educational aspirations of schoolchildren through a very wide range of outreach initiatives.
"The University of Durham does not give lower offers to applicants from private school backgrounds."
At Durham, 67pc of students are from state schools - up from 62pc last year but below the 78pc benchmark set by Hefce. Newcastle has 69pc and its target is 81pc.
The new universities - notably Sunderland and Northumbria - are better at attracting state school pupils.
The Sutton report did not look into the reasons for this but other research has indicated that lack of confidence is a major factor. Sir Peter Lampl, chairman of the Sutton Trust and a member of the Government's task force on getting more working class people into university, said this represented a potential waste of talent.
"And far from the university system discriminating against pupils from the independent sector, it is acting in their favour," he said.
Northumberland