All the facts you need to answer tricky questions about higher education

The last year in higher education has seen misconceptions abound in the media. Here’s everything you need to know to set the record straight, based on new research findings you may have missed.

Are fewer poor students going to university in the UK?

According to the Higher Education Statistics Agency, the gender gap is getting wider, with 55% of women entering higher education compared to just 43% of men. Recent research for the Sutton Trust [pdf] tells us that the poorest students are slightly more likely to go than they used to be – 11.3% of students come from the poorest areas, compared with 9.6% six years ago. But the most elite universities take far fewer – no more than 4% at Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial and UCL.

Most universities take some social indicators into account when admitting students, the most common being participation in outreach programmes, coming from a poorer neighbourhood or school, and having been in receipt of free school meals. Widening access programmes are the most common contextual indicator used, with two-thirds of these leading universities reporting that they take them into account. The Sutton Trust finds universities which do this don’t experience any rise in drop-out rates or a drop in grades as a result.

Is the UK admissions system less progressive than elsewhere in Europe?

Research from Rand Europe and LSE Enterprise for the European Parliament’s committee on culture and education compared admissions systems and found that there were drawbacks to a more open policy. In France, for example, where egalitarian principles have driven open admissions dependent only on passing school-leaving exams, the drop-out rate in the first year is 50%. The research suggests more competitive entrance requirements could actually aid social mobility by matching students more closely with courses in which they are likely to succeed. The UK, for instance, had the highest graduation rate, 51%, against an average of 37%.

Do boys outperform girls at university?

Results from a new study from the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER) at the University of Essex show that in first-year exams, women do better than men, those from middle-class families do better than those from working-class families and white British students do better than black British ones.

The study also finds that success is linked to regular attendance at lectures as well as to using “active” study methods rather than passive ones. Personality traits such as resilience and “grit” were also found to be helpful.

A second recent piece of ISER research [pdf] looked more closely at ethnic and gender gaps in drop-out rates and degree class. It found that while much of the difference in “university-readiness” could be explained by pre-existing factors such as socioeconomic background and school subject choice, the same was not true for differences in final degree class.

Does it matter what subjects students study at school?

Two recent pieces of research suggest that traditional academic subject choices give students an advantage in the applications process when compared with vocational ones. A recent doctoral thesis from Catherine Dilnot at the UCL Institute of Education analysed information on English students who went to university between 2010 and 2012, and found that those taking vocational A-levels such as law, accounting or business were less likely to go to elite institutions than those who did subjects such as science, maths, languages, history or geography.

Similarly, a recent study from the University of Essex showed students who took vocational BTEC qualifications instead of A-levels were less prepared for degree-level study. Students with traditional A-levels such as maths, biology, geography or history were more likely to do well at university.

How can universities improve their ratings in the Teaching Excellence Framework?

The Higher Education Funding Council for England has ranked 60 institutions as gold for their teaching quality, 115 silver and 53 bronze. But how much difference was made by the qualitative supporting statements submitted by participating universities?

Research by the Higher Education Policy Institute [pdf] analysed a sample of those submissions and came up with a checklist for those working on similar statements for the next Tef. These include being clear about institutional mission and the tone the university is looking to convey, showing commitment to research-led teaching and demonstrating student input in the process where possible.

How can universities stem drop-out rates?

The Essex research looked at a sample of all students starting undergraduate courses between 2007-08 and 2014-15 and found that 20% of them didn’t complete their degrees at the first attempt. (Of the 80% who passed, 16% got a first, 48% a 2:1 and 23% a 2:2.) Poorer and ethnic minority students were more likely to drop out.

These attainment gaps can partly be explained by the fact that those groups are more likely to have non-academic A-levels – see above – and are more likely to be mature students. Mature students are more likely to drop out, but if they do complete their degrees they’re more likely to get a high grade. Asian students are more likely to choose courses with high fail rates, such as medicine or pharmacy. The research suggests universities could offer more targeted support to help BTEC students with the transition from practical or lab-based work to academic writing and exam-based assessment.

Which graduates are most likely to get jobs?

The latest analysis from the Higher Education Longitudinal Survey found that just under three quarters of graduates were in full-time paid work three and a half years after graduating. Just 2.3% were believed to be unemployed.

But there were big variations between those with different degrees – the lowest unemployment rate was among those who studied medicine or dentistry, at just 0.6%, and the highest was among computer scientists, at 4.6%. Those least likely to be in full-time work were biological scientists – 72.3% – but they were more likely than others to still be studying.

Which graduates earn the best salaries?

Data from the Department for Education [pdf] shows both university and degree subject are major drivers of future earnings. Some of the top earnings, five years after graduation, were among those who took business (£70,000), economics (£60,000) and law (£60,000), but graduates from some lower-performing business degrees were on average earnings of around £20,000 five years after leaving, while those with economics or law could be earning slightly less than that. At the bottom end, art and design graduates from courses with the least successful financial outcomes could be on an average of as little as £10,000 per year.

The Sutton Trust (see below) says private school students have average starting salaries £1,350 higher than their state-educated classmates – even if they have taken the same courses and emerged with the same grades.

Is the graduate wage premium a myth?

The Sutton Trust reports that men with degrees earn 28% more than men without, and that for women the gap is much bigger – 53%. But students from the poorest backgrounds are less likely to go to high-status universities, more likely to study on low-status courses and less likely to go into the best jobs when they leave.

So, what’s the wage premium for those who have the odds stacked against them? This is harder to pin down, but one recent study from the Centre for the Analysis of Social Policy at the University of Bath suggests the benefits of a degree for a male graduate from a middle-class family could be almost three times greater than for a similar graduate from a poorer family. For students who take a low-achieving course at a low-achieving university and who come out with a lower class of degree, the benefits will be much reduced.

How worried should universities be about rising levels of student debt?

A recent House of Commons research paper says the average debt among the first cohort to become liable for repayment was £32,000. But once changes announced in the 2015 budget have been implemented, the average debt will rise to £40,000. For those from the poorest backgrounds, that figure will be £53,000. Those from poorer families are more likely to take out maintenance loans, along with those on arts-based courses – where earnings potential is likely to be lower.

But other official research [pdf] suggests that students’ aspirations to go into higher education have not necessarily been dented by higher levels of debt, and that the concept of debt is becoming more widely accepted.

• Fran Abrams is joint CEO of the Education Media Centre, a charity which aims to raise the public profile of good evidence about what works in education.

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