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Too few male black students are reaching university, a minister has said.
Universities minister David Lammy, speaking at a conference in Oxford, said more needed to be done to tackle inequalities preventing entry to higher education.
The proportion of university students in England who are black Caribbean males has remained static at just over one per cent for three years, he said.
Those that do are much more likely to attend local universities than elite institutions, he went on.
Lammy said he was the first black Briton to study for a masters in law at Harvard, becoming an MP in 2000.
"In this country people people like me are still the exception rather than the rule. And the same is even still true in the USA, where a black man could be elected president in a few days' time," he said.
"So we mustn't let the fact that some black people do make it lead us to become complacent.
"Because let's be honest about it, we're not yet living in a society where everyone has an equal chance.
"I'm not talking about racism, and this isn't just an issue that concerns black boys or even kids from black and ethnic minority backgrounds. It's equally true of white boys and girls from less well-off families."
Dods Parliamentary Communications Ltd