Outgoing St Andrews University principal Louise Richardson is departing for Oxford hurling brickbats at the Scottish Government over interference.

The most recent complaint has been about plans to require trade union representation on university courts, but St Andrews has also been reluctant to embrace demands to widen access too learners from poorer backgrounds.

Irked by complaints that private school pupils make up 40% of its intake, despite the fact that private schools only educate one in 20 children, Mrs Richardson says too few pupils from less privileged backgrounds are achieving the necessary qualifications. The real problem of access happens much earlier she says: "We cannot expect universities to solve those problems and the investment has to be made much earlier to ensure that kids in poor areas get the education and have the ambition to attend the best universities."

It's fair to say that Glasgow Caledonian University takes a position diametrically opposed to hers. As winners of two previous Herald Society Awards, their Caledonian Club may already be well-known to readers of this column.

The 'Caley Club' accepts Mrs Richardson's basic premise - early engagement with people from non-traditional backgrounds is vital, to make them aspire to a higher education, give them an insight into what is involved and simply make them comfortable with the surroundings of a university. Since 2008, nursery and primary age pupils have been encouraged into the Glasgow campus to help shape their attitudes, and just as importantly, those of their parents.

This summer a newly launched initiative, Families Learning Together, will bring 100 pupils from five partner primary schools along with parents and extended family members to the university for a week of educational activities. These will include cookery and fashion, science and sport, puppetry and more. A careers carousel will help inform parents of career paths and employment information.

Does it work? It seems to. Never mind private school backgrounds, 12% of GCU entrants come from the schools in Scotland where pupils were previously the least likely to get a higher education. Meanwhile

73% of undergraduates are the first in their families ever to attend a university.

University autonomy is a good principal, and Mrs Richardson is right to say the diversity of institutions is one of the strengths of the system. "It is important that we allow those differences to flourish rather than trying to treat all universities as if they are the same," she told the Herald.

But while it is true that educational opportunities begin to diverge from an early age, it is simply wrong to suggest that universities can do nothing about it.