Today, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) released the publication How English domiciled graduate earnings vary with gender, institution attended, subject and socioeconomic background co-authored by J. Britton, L. Dearden, N. Shephard, and A. Vignoles. The IFS announced this is the ‘first time a “big data” approach has been used to look at how graduate earnings vary…’ looking at the student loan records of 260,000 graduates, who started university between 1998 to 2011.
The report has been picked up by media, such as the Financial Times, The Guardian, The Telegraph, Times Higher Education and even The Sun. One of the main findings from the report is that ‘graduates from richer family backgrounds earn significantly more after graduation than their poorer counterparts, even after completing the same degrees from the same universities’.
These findings come at a time when domestic news is dominated by the Panama Papers, the moral question concerning tax havens, and backlashes to former Tory minister Sir Alan’s comments that ‘low-achievers…know absolutely nothing about the outside world” who “hate anyone who has got a hint of wealth in them”. While obviously targeted at those in the House of Commons, the rhetoric of rich versus poor has resurfaced after a brief pause post-Osborne’s budget. It also sheds light on on-going concerns about social mobility.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies report also reveals other findings. These include:
- Non-graduates being twice as likely to be out of work after ten years
- There are significant differences between graduate/non-graduate salaries ten years on
- University attended makes a difference to salary after graduation, although the report did not name which universities
- Medical students earned higher than other subjects; this was followed by economics.
- A gender gap remains apparent in the results