Unequal graduate outcomes
Inequalities in access to university are perpetuated in graduate outcomes: even when we account for institution, subject and prior attainment, students from lower socio-economic backgrounds and some minority ethnic groups are less likely to gain employment in the top professions, and earn less on graduation. This is likely to be a construct of a range of factors, including the differential levels of employment capital gained by students whilst at university (participation in extra-curricular and work experience, for example), geography, and the marketing and recruitment practices of employers.
Even when students from lower socio-economic backgrounds do as well as their peers from higher socio-economic backgrounds, as graduates they are less likely to enter the professions.1 Controlling for a wide range of background factors, three years after graduation, those from the lowest socio-economic backgrounds are 11% less likely to be in professional employment than those from higher social groups.2
According to the Office for Students, five years after leaving university, students from areas with low participation in higher education (POLAR quintile 1) earned, on average, 19 per cent less than those from areas of high participation (POLAR quintile 5).
A study interrogated comprehensively (using tax data) whether students from lower socio-economic backgrounds who attend similar universities and study the same subject earn less in the labour market than their peers from higher socio-economic groups.3 Based on a simple measure of parental income, it found that students from higher income families have median earnings which are around 25% more than those from lower income families. Once institution attended and subject chosen was controlled for, this premium falls to around 10%.
Percentage of graduates in highly skilled jobs by index of deprivation, 2012-13 to 2016-17 4
English indices of deprivation 2015
Data shows that of young people leaving university in 2017/18, 53% of Black graduates secured full-time employment compared with 62% of White graduates. Graduates in Black and ethnic minority groups are more likely to be unemployed one year after leaving higher education than White graduates.5 This is a product of inequalities in higher education but also of processes of racism and exclusion in the labour market.
For instance, work experience is central to enabling students to progress into professional roles, but as is revealed in the section ‘extra-curricular activities and work experience’, there are many financial and cultural barriers to undertaking activities.
The landscape of graduate outcomes is complex and what constitutes ‘success’ varies between students. Focusing on employment outcomes can have the effect of compounding socio-economic inequalities by promoting the movement of graduates to large urban areas to secure high status jobs.6 Researchers and commentators urge the need for a more nuanced understanding of ‘student success’ that recognises the ‘learning gain’ for the individual, the geographical variations in graduate salaries, and the benefits of participation for wider society.
Footnotes
- Lindsey Macmillan, Claire Tyler and Anna Vignoles. (2013) Who gets the top jobs? The role of family background and networks in recent graduates’ access to high status professions. IOE London.
- Higher Education Funding Council for England. (2016) Differences in employment outcomes, Comparison of 2008-09 and 2010-11 first degree graduates.
- Jack Britton et al. (2016) How English domiciled graduate earnings vary with gender, institution attended, subject and socio-economic background. Institute for Fiscal Studies.
- https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/annual-review-2019/beyond-higher-education-ensuring-successful-outcomes
- HESA. (2020) Higher education graduate outcome statistics.
- Simon Marginson. (2019) Limitations of human capital theory. Studies in Higher Education. 44:2, 287-301.
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