Students from poor households are not going to universities that their grades deserve, a study has found, as secondary schools are blamed.

Up to a quarter of teenagers from disadvantaged backgrounds are taking up places at lower ranking universities despite having good enough A-level results to go somewhere more prestigious, according to researchers at University College London.

The study examined the characteristics of those who “undermatched” - meaning they attended worse universities than they could have done, based on their grades - and those who “overmatched”, meaning the opposite.

Poor students, defined as those from areas of deprivation or those who were eligible for free school meals, were more likely to “undermatch” than their wealthier peers, researchers found.

Academics analysed data from over 130,000 state educated students in England and found that the school they attended accounted for much of the “mismatch” in their university choice.

Dr Gill Wyness, the paper’s lead author, said that when considering students from within the same school, the gap in prestige of universities they went on to “virtually disappeared”.

“That leads us to the conclusion that it is something to do with the school,” she told The Telegraph. “A potential explanation is that some schools will drive students to particular courses and others potentially won’t.”