̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - university

̽��ֱ��fifty-percenters: the economic value of education

lw355 — Fri, 22 Jun 2018 12:26:17 +0000

At the start of the 1970s there were 600,000 university students. Now there are 2.5 million. In 2017, the participation of young people in higher education reached 49% – the highest level since the introduction of tuition fees.

̽��ֱ�� offers the promise of life-changing opportunities and teaching that develops knowledge and skills. Individuals, society and the economy are all winners in the game of higher education.

On the other hand, students will face an average debt of £50,000, a rising drop-out rate in some institutions and an uncertain future job market.

Arguably it is the best of times and the worst of times to be a student.

And now experts are predicting that 300,000 new university places will be needed by 2030 to keep up with demand.

“Needed is an interesting word in this context,” reflects Professor Anna Vignoles from Cambridge’s Faculty of Education. “It indicates an assumption that is built into our society that everybody should try to go to university. If this is the case then it becomes absolutely vital that prospective students understand what this means in terms of their future employability.”

Education plus the jobs it leads to are major factors in improving social mobility and the growth of an economy. And while Vignoles doesn’t claim to have answers to how this works best, what she and her colleagues do have is access to the largest UK education dataset ever to link education with earnings – and a set of complex questions to ask of it.

̽��ֱ��data has been collected as part of the Department of Education’s Longitudinal Education Outcomes (LEO). It’s actually two datasets: the educational performance of three million primary-school-aged children per year, followed through their secondary and further education to university, including the subject and university they choose; and their subsequent tax records data up to ten years after graduating.

Vignoles and colleagues in Cambridge and the Institute of Fiscal Studies are the first to be given access to such types of data, which they’ve been working on since 2013. Some of their results have been published, and many more are to follow.

“ ̽��ֱ��top-line result is that graduate-level skill is valued in the labour market and that, for most graduates, higher education leads to much better earnings than those earned by non-graduates,” says Vignoles. “Tony Blair pledged in 2001 as Prime Minister to increase the proportion of young people progressing to university to 50%. It’s clear that the UK is now well on its way to this milestone and to achieving the ambition of becoming a graduate economy.”

But when the team looked in detail at how graduate earnings vary by institution, degree subject and parental income, they were struck by the sheer scale of the variation.

For instance, their initial study, published in 2016, showed that more than 10% of male graduates from the London School of Economics, Oxford and Cambridge were earning in excess of £100,000 a year ten years after graduation, whereas the median earnings of graduates from some institutions were less than the median earnings of non-graduates ten years on.

Medical students were the highest earners ten years after graduating, followed by economics graduates. Those studying the creative arts had the lowest earnings, but there were major differences depending on the institution attended.

Some of these earnings differences are attributable to differences in entry requirements and levels of prior achievement at A-level. ̽��ֱ��point that Vignoles makes is that it’s important for young people to be aware of these differences when they make their choices.

“Of course factors beyond graduate earnings, such as the student’s interest in a subject, will and should drive student choice, and we should value subjects irrespective of whether they have high earnings,” says Vignoles. “However, it is also important that we don’t hide this information from students in the hope that they won’t notice the lack of jobs or earning power when they leave.”

̽��ֱ��team’s analysis of LEO doesn’t just give a full picture of what our education system is doing as a whole but also what it’s doing for those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

“It’s partly through analysis of these data that we show that a massive socio-economic gap in achievement at the point of entry into the school system actually worsens through primary and early secondary school. It is these early gaps in achievement that are largely responsible for fewer young people from poorer households going to university.”

But the inequality doesn’t end there. “What you really want to know is what about the students from poorer backgrounds who have managed to achieve in the system? We shouldn’t expect any difference between their success in the labour market and that of their advantaged peers – if education is the route to social mobility then they’ve done their bit.”

In fact they found that students from richer backgrounds still did better in the labour market than other students. “Even students who studied the same subject at the same university earn on average 10% less than more affluent peers if they come from poorer backgrounds,” she says.

“Why is there this second socio-economic gap? Is it around ‘social capital’ networks that they don’t have? Or types of postgraduate study they can’t afford? It’s really important for us to know what we’re dealing with so that we can get to the root causes.”

̽��ֱ��team’s findings are also relevant to discussions around the demand for skills that will advance the success of the UK’s economy and the level at which the state subsidises higher education. “How these relate to higher education are controversial issues,” says Vignoles, “It’s important that the intrinsic value of going to university is not lost in discussions that focus on the economics of human capital investment.”

Yet, according to the 2017 CBI/Pearson Education and Skills Survey, 61% of businesses said that they fear a shortage of people with the necessary skills to fill their predicted increase in high-skilled roles over the coming years.

Meanwhile, the government underwrites student loans; graduates pay 9% of their earnings above an income threshold of £25,000. “For around three quarters of graduates, it’s unlikely they will have paid off the loan by the end of their working lives,” says Vignoles.

“This income contingency is crucially important – we can’t give students mortgage-sized debts and ask them to take the risk of not being able to repay them. ̽��ֱ��state has to subsidise students. But, as a consequence, the state will be subsidising some subjects that attract lower earnings more than others. And subsidy for higher education may mean less resource for further education or apprenticeships. We need a public debate on this.

“We might argue the government should be investing more in education across the piece because we want a highly skilled future, but some hard choices need to be made about where to invest. That’s where big data approaches can inform a wider debate – helping us to dig deep below the surface of these complex issues.”

Inset image: read more about our research on the topic of work in the ̽��ֱ��'s research magazine; download a pdf; view on Issuu.

Almost half of young people in the UK now go to university. Who gets in – and what and where they study – affects a person’s place in society and their future earnings, as well as the skills available to the job market. Can big data help the ‘fifty percenters’ make one of the most important decisions of their lives – and advance the success of the UK’s graduate economy?

We might argue the government should be investing more in education across the piece because we want a highly skilled future, but some hard choices need to be made about where to invest. That’s where big data approaches can inform a wider debate

Anna Vignoles

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

Graduate earnings: what you study and where matters – but so does parents’ income

fpjl2 — Wed, 13 Apr 2016 09:27:34 +0000

Latest research has shown 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.

̽��ֱ��finding is one of many from a new study, published today, which looks at the link between earnings and students’ background, degree subject and university.

̽��ֱ��research also found that those studying medicine and economics earn far more than those studying other degree subjects, and that there is considerable variation in graduates’ earnings depending on the university attended.

̽��ֱ��study was carried out by the Institute of Fiscal Studies and the universities of Cambridge and Harvard, including Professor Anna Vignoles from Cambridge’s Faculty of Education. It is the first time a ‘big data’ approach has been used to look at how graduate earnings vary by institution of study, degree subject and parental income.

̽��ֱ��researchers say that many other factors beyond graduate earnings, such as intrinsic interest, will and should drive student choice. However, they write that the research shows the potential value of providing some useful information that might inform students’ choice of degree – particularly to assist those from more disadvantaged backgrounds who might find it harder to navigate the higher education system.

“It would seem important to ensure there is adequate advice and guidance given that graduates’ future earnings are likely to vary depending on the institution and subject they choose, with implications for social mobility,” write the researchers in the study’s executive summary.

̽��ֱ��research used anonymised tax data and student loan records for 260,000 students up to ten years after graduation. ̽��ֱ��dataset includes cohorts of graduates who started university in the period 1998-2011 and whose earnings (or lack of earnings) are then observed over a number of tax years. ̽��ֱ��paper focuses on the tax year 2012/13.

̽��ֱ��study found that those from richer backgrounds (defined as being approximately from the top 20% of households of those applying to higher education in terms of family income) did better in the labour market than the other 80% of students.

̽��ֱ��average gap in earnings between students from higher and lower income backgrounds is £8,000 a year for men and £5,300 a year for women, ten years after graduation.

Even after taking account of subject studied and the characteristics of the institution of study, the average student from a higher income background earned about 10% more than other students.

̽��ֱ��gap is bigger at the top of the distribution – the 10% highest earning male graduates from richer backgrounds earned about 20% more than the 10% highest earners from relatively poorer backgrounds. ̽��ֱ��equivalent premium for the 10% highest earning female graduates from richer backgrounds was 14%.

̽��ֱ��study also showed that graduates are much more likely to be in work, and earn much more than non-graduates. Non-graduates are twice as likely to have no earnings as are graduates ten years on (30% against 15% for the cohort who enrolled in higher education in 1999).

Partly as a result of this, half of non-graduate women had earnings below £8,000 a year at around age 30, say the researchers. Only a quarter of female graduates were earning less than this. Half were earning more than £21,000 a year.

Among those with significant earnings (which the researchers define as above £8,000 a year), median earnings for male graduates ten years after graduation were £30,000. For non-graduates of the same age median earnings were £21,000. ̽��ֱ��equivalent figures for women with significant earnings were £27,000 and £18,000.

“ ̽��ֱ��research illustrates strongly that, for most graduates, higher education leads to much better earnings than those earned by non-graduates, although students need to realise that their subject choice is important in determining how much of an earnings advantage they will have,” said Professor Vignoles.

̽��ֱ��researchers also found substantial differences in earnings according to which university was attended, as well as which subject was studied. They say however that this is in large part driven by differences in entry requirements.

For instance, more than 10% of male graduates from LSE, Oxford and Cambridge were earning in excess of £100,000 a year ten years after graduation, with LSE graduates earning the most. LSE was the only institution with more than 10% of its female graduates earning in excess of £100,000 a year ten years on.

Even without focusing on the very top, the researchers say they found a large number of institutions (36 for men and 10 for women) had 10% of their graduates earning more than £60,000 a year ten years on. At the other end of the spectrum, there were some institutions (23 for men and 9 for women) where the median graduate earnings were less than those of the median non-graduate ten years on.

However, the researchers say that it is important to put this in context. “Given regional differences in average wages, some very locally focused institutions may struggle to produce graduates whose wages outpace English wide earnings, which includes those living in London where full time earnings for males are around 50% higher than in some other regions, such as Northern Ireland,” they write.

In terms of earnings according to subject, medical students were easily the highest earners at the median ten years out, followed by those who studied economics. For men, median earnings for medical graduates were about £50,000 after ten years, and for economics graduates £40,000.

Those studying the creative arts had the lowest earnings, and earned no more on average than non-graduates. However, the researchers say that some of these earnings differences are, of course, attributable to differences in student intake – since students with different levels of prior achievement at A-level take different subject options.

“When we account for different student intakes across subjects, only economics and medicine remain outliers with much higher earnings at the median as compared to their peers in other subjects,” write the researchers.

After allowing for differences in the characteristics of those who take different subjects, male medical graduates earn around £13,000 more at the median than similar engineering and technology graduates, the gap for women is approximately £16,000. Both male and female medical graduates earn around £14,000 more at the median than similar law graduates.

“Earnings vary substantially with university, subject, gender and cohort,” said study co-author Neil Shepherd of Harvard ̽��ֱ��. “This impacts on which parts of the HE sector the UK Government funds through the subsidy inherent within income contingent student loans. ̽��ֱ��next step in the research is to quantifying that variation in funding, building on today's paper.”

Reference:
Institute for Fiscal Studies working paper: 'How English domiciled graduate earnings vary with gender, institution attended, subject and socio-economic background', Jack Britton , Lorraine Dearden , Neil Shephard and Anna Vignoles.

First ‘big data’ research approach to graduate earnings reveals significant variations depending on student background, degree subject and university attended.

̽��ֱ��research illustrates strongly that, for most graduates, higher education leads to much better earnings than those earned by non-graduates, although students need to realise that their subject choice is important in determining how much of an earnings advantage they will have

Anna Vignoles

Sir Cam

Sidney Sussex General Admission, Cambridge 2012

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

India in the Global Age

bjb42 — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 10:37:37 +0000

̽��ֱ��theme of the meeting will be 'India in the Global Age' and it will focus on issues of knowledge creation and transfer, bringing together Cambridge and Indian expertise in the arts, humanities and social sciences.

Apart from members of the ̽��ֱ�� and Cambridge alumni from the UK and India, major figures from the world of Indian politics, business, media and education will be participating in a day-long series of discussions which are aimed at strengthening Cambridge's long-standing ties with India and developing them for the twenty-first century as the country's global importance grows ever greater.

Panels will consider the future of the university, India's response to the contemporary global economic crisis, Delhi's century as India's capital city, social policy and development, art and cultural politics and ideas of Indian democracy. ̽��ֱ��summit promises to be one of the most important events ever staged by the ̽��ֱ�� to promote cooperation and understanding outside the UK.

Audio files from the event will be made available as podcasts, which can be accessed through the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge iTunesU channel. Links to these and other material generated by the summit will be available on the Centre of South Asian Studies Click here to go to the Facebook event page for the India-Cambridge Summit.

An India Cambridge 'summit' will take place on Monday 10 September at the Taj Mahal Hotel, New Delhi, to coincide with the Vice-Chancellor's visit to India.

̽��ֱ��summit promises to be one of the most important events ever staged by the ̽��ֱ�� to promote cooperation and understanding outside the UK.

Credit ePi.Longo from Flickr

New Delhi from Jama Masjid's tower

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Yes

̽��ֱ��Idea of the ̽��ֱ��

ns480 — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 16:54:33 +0000

It takes place as universities are facing a period of huge change, of turbulence and uncertainty; they find themselves at the heart of economic and social policy and referred to as ‘agents for change’.

Professor Stefan Collini, will challenge some of the different, and incompatible roles that are assigned to universities, in the opening lecture this Tuesday (11 October).

Other speakers in the series will include: Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, Professor Martin Rees and Professor Onora O'Neill who will be talking about what a university is or should be.

̽��ֱ��inaugural talk, entitled ‘ ̽��ֱ��Very Idea of the ̽��ֱ��’, will propose a vocabulary and a perspective, which will enable us to discuss the role of such institutions in more fruitful terms than the clichés about ‘contributing to economic growth’, which currently dominate public debate on the topic.

̽��ֱ��free, public lecture will be held at 5:00pm on Tuesday, 11th October, at the Lady Mitchell Hall on the ̽��ֱ��’s Sidgwick site.

Stefan Collini is Professor of Intellectual History and English Literature, and a Fellow of the British Academy. His research focuses on the relation between literature and intellectual history from the early 20th century to the present. His current research focusses on the cultural role of, and the historical assumptions expressed in, literary criticism in Britain from c.1920 to c.1970.

Professor Simon Schaffer, from the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, will give the final lecture in a series of six lectures.

His lecture will juxtapose the severe crisis in English universities, a crisis entirely imposed upon them by the current government, with previous histories of university relations with state and enterprise.

Further lectures in the series are:

Professor Onora O'Neill: ̽��ֱ�� and Diversity

Tuesday, 18 Oct 2011

Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz: ̽��ֱ��Idea of the ̽��ֱ��

Tuesday, 25 Oct 2011

Professor Martin Rees: ̽��ֱ��Idea of the ̽��ֱ��

Tuesday, 8 Nov 2011

Professor Simon Schaffer: ̽��ֱ��Life and Death of Universities

Tuesday, 29 Nov 2011

̽��ֱ��idea of the university and the roles assigned to universities in the 21st Century will be the subject of a lecture series beginning in Cambridge this week.

Gnuckx from Flickr Creative commons

Writing, Sunset, Italy.

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Yes

What shape will universities take in the future?

amb206 — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 11:03:53 +0000

Children born this year will enter university in or around 2030. ̽��ֱ��offspring of children born this year will arrive at university-age in the middle of the 21^st century. By this time, much is likely to have changed about the ways in which teaching and research take place: a greater use of technology as a tool for teaching and learning is one obvious example. Predicting what universities will look like in the coming decades requires an even greater leap of imagination: will the institutions we know today even exist in the same shape and form?

̽��ֱ��Future ̽��ֱ��, a conference taking place at Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� later this week, will tackle some of the big questions surrounding the future of higher education, not simply in response to the current pressures on funding, but also in terms of the sweeping changes affecting the ways in which we live our lives. In particular, it will look at the vital role and contribution of the arts, humanities and social sciences within an environment that is in danger of dominance by an increasing emphasis on science and technology – and ask how the humanities and related disciplines are responding to the challenges and changes of the digital age.

̽��ֱ��three-day forum, generously funded by the Andrew W Mellon Foundation, is being staged by the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH) at Cambridge ̽��ֱ��, and convened by CRASSH director, Professor Mary Jacobus. It is the second of two conferences looking at the way in which the humanities engage with the wider world on many different levels. This week’s conference also marks the 10^th anniversary of CRASSH as a thriving hub dedicated to the interdisciplinary exchange of ideas and perspectives, not simply within Cambridge but also globally.

̽��ֱ��event will bring leading figures in academia and policy-making together with graduate and post-doctoral researchers at the start of their careers. In a series of panels, discussions and debates on a range of broad themes, they will look at the ways in which the study of the humanities engages with, and enriches, people’s lives by encouraging a creative dialogue that crosses boundaries and enhances cultural understanding. ̽��ֱ��themes embrace aspects of language, literature, archaeology, history, art history, music and more - and will be discussed from perspectives that include such pressing issues such as human rights, the need for a sustainable built environment, and the preservation of endangered languages.

“ ̽��ֱ��conference will provide a forum for conversations about topics that affect us all and represent aspects of our lives that reach far beyond the current crisis in humanities funding into the nature of our society,” said Professor Jacobus.

̽��ֱ��event’s key note speakers will be the philosopher Bernard Stiegler, Director of the Institut de Recherche et d’Innovation at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, on “ ̽��ֱ��Pharmacology of Mind: Digital Technologies and the Conditional ̽��ֱ��”, and Sir Adam Roberts, President of the British Academy and a specialist in law and international relations, on “ ̽��ֱ��Impact of International History”. Leaders in their field, these speakers will offer perspectives that will prompt an exploration of lines of thought about the fundamental human questions underlying knowledge and education.

Cambridge Vice-Chancellor Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz will take part in a panel discussion on “ ̽��ֱ��Fate of the Humanities” along with the President of the Mellon Foundation, Don Randel. Other eminent speakers include Stefan Collini and Simon Schaffer ( ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge), Marina Warner (Essex ̽��ֱ��), Joseph Koerner (Harvard ̽��ֱ��), Richard Sennett (NYU and LSE) and Debjani Ganguli (ANU). “We hope that the contribution of these speakers will generate lively audience discussion,” said Professor Jacobus.

Discussions about the importance of music and art, and their role within the life of universities in for both theoretical and practice-based study, will be complemented by musical improvisation at the West Road Concert Hall at the end of the first day. ̽��ֱ��conference will conclude with a discussion about the role of the art museum in a university setting at the Fitzwilliam Museum featuring the Director of the Tate Museums, Sir Nicholas Serota, and the Director of the Courtauld Institute, Deborah Swallow, with the conversation chaired by Timothy Potts, director of the Museum, .

̽��ֱ��Future ̽��ֱ�� takes place from 30 June to 2 July. For details of the conference programme, including registration and booking for Improvisation in the Round at the West Road Concert Hall on 30 June and the Fitzwilliam Museum Panel Discussion on 2 July, go to http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/1321/.

A conference at CRASSH later this week will address some big and highly topical questions.

̽��ֱ��conference will provide a forum for conversations about topics that affect us all and represent aspects of our lives that reach far beyond the current crisis in humanities funding.

Professor Mary Jacobus

Gnuckx from Flickr Creative commons

Writing, Sunset, Italy.

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Yes