There has been a “remarkable shift” in poorer children now receiving a bigger share of education spending in England, says the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
The independent financial researchers say in previous generations children from richer families were the main beneficiaries, as they were likely to stay longer in education.
But this pattern has been reversed by policies deliberately “skewed” to give more funding towards the deprived and with more poorer youngsters going to sixth form and university, it says.
The analysis reveals that poorer pupils who took their GCSEs in 2010 had almost £10,000 more spent on them during their school years than their richer counterparts.