Disadvantaged ‘gain more from degrees’ than better-off peers

Poorer students have the most to gain from getting a degree, with the boost to their earnings after university outstripping that enjoyed by their better-off peers.

According to analysis by social mobility charity the Sutton Trust, those who were eligible for free school meals (FSM) earn 55 per cent more than non-graduates from a similar background. In contrast, graduates who aren’t from an FSM background earn only 43 per cent more.

Graduates whose parents did not go to university are almost three times as likely to reach the top fifth of earners as non-graduates from the same background, the charity found, citing data from the National Pupil Database (NPD), Higher Education Statistics Authority (Hesa) and the Longitudinal Education Outcomes (LEO).

Nonetheless, the analysis, released in tandem with the Sutton Trust’s best-practice guide for universities on advancing social mobility, emphasises that too few of the most disadvantaged make it into higher education in the first place.

Just 5 per cent of FSM students enter the kind of high-tariff institutions – those with harder barriers to entry – likely to produce top-earning graduates.

In its guide, the Sutton Trust said it hopes to address some of the difficulties preventing wider participation and says institutional strain is no reason to overlook that goal.

The practical framework advises universities to use targeted data to appeal to potential applicants from disadvantaged backgrounds – but to consider gaps in provision beyond the local area, too, in order to appeal to those from further afield.

For example, FSM pupils at one end of the country (East Ham) are more than three times more likely to have a degree by the age of 22 compared with those at the other (Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West), according to the Sutton Trust’s Opportunity Index map.

In addition, the charity is advising more “ambitious use” of contextual admissions, the practice of making sure decisions on who gets into a university acknowledge socio-economic disadvantage.

The current approach in England is “difficult to navigate” for some students, the guide claims. By comparison, Scotland has, since its Blueprint for Fairness report came out in 2016, established a shared contextual admissions approach for universities.

Scottish government figures show the proportion of students from the most deprived areas increased from 13.7 per cent in 2013-14, before the Commission on Widening Access was established, to 16.7 per cent in 2023-24.

Going further on contextual admissions in England could include providing detailed guidance on how personal statements are used and explanations of what assessors will look for in them, as well as offering tailored guidance on subject-specific admissions activities like auditions or the UCAT test for medicine, the guide recommends.

Crucially, universities may also consider reducing entry requirements entirely “where evidence supports” the decision.

Once at university, students have a right to expect teaching staff to consider “curriculum, pedagogy and assessment as widening participation issues”, the guide states.

Opaque office hours, clustered assessment deadlines, and assumed understanding of cultural knowledge can all harm disadvantaged students’ educational experience, the paper warns.

Universities, the advice recommends, ought to give staff regular “appropriate training on how to support and teach students from less-well-off backgrounds.

“Predictable and needs-based” financial support, meanwhile, must always be available for such students.

Nick Harrison, chief executive of the Sutton Trust, said: “Universities are working hard despite financial pressures, but doing more of the same is no longer enough.

“We need to turn that commitment into a breakthrough, via admissions policies bold enough to spot potential, financial support that arrives when students need it, and clear routes into good jobs. Every institution has a part to play and together we can make the next 20 years look very different from the last.”

georgia.luckhurst@timeshighereducation.com