This article presents and discusses empirical research whose main objective has been to determine changes in the socio‐economic background of African university students in Zimbabwe since independence in 1980. While it has been frequently asserted that the access of the povo (the ‘people’ — referrring to the low‐income majority) to the University of Zimbabwe has improved significantly, a major finding of the research is that the representation of students from peasant and unskilled and semi‐skilled occupational backgrounds did not increase appreciably during the 1980s, and that students from professional family backgrounds were over represented eight times at the university.