New research has shown that ten years after graduating, male law students earn less on average than their peers who left university with degrees in engineering, economics and medicine-but around 20 per cent more than their own female classmates.
Advertisement
The 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.
The study, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, is the first to take a “big data” approach to graduate employment destinations.
Universities Minister Jo Johnson, said: “We have seen record application rates among students from disadvantaged backgrounds, but this latest analysis reveals the worrying gaps that still exist in graduate outcomes”.
Graduates from richer families typically earn thousands of pounds more a year than those from poorer homes.
He said the finding was “of crucial importance” in trying to tackle social immobility. The paper focuses on the tax year 2012/13.
This is linked to London’s jobs market and reflects that economics graduates are among the highest earners.
It is clear from the data that the gender gap persists among graduates just as it does among non-graduates – and the Financial Times notes that “university education may not be the leveller it was once believed”. Among women, the highest-earning from rich homes earn around 14% more.
How did researchers determine a graduate’s background?
Non-graduates were twice as likely to have no earnings as those who completed their studies, it said.
Male graduates earned around £8,000 more than non-graduates of the same age, while women earned £9,000 more. Only a quarter of female graduates were earning less than this.
Those studying medicine and economics were found to earn significantly more than those reading other subjects.
Sally Hunt, general secretary of the University and College Union (UCU), described the report as a “wake-up call” for policy makers and employers, who “must do more to level the playing field and ensure that future generations of students are not hindered by social background or by which institution they attended”.
Those studying the creative arts had the lowest salaries – earning, on average, no more than non-graduates. They say however that this is in large part driven by differences in entry requirements.
The expense of getting a degree might not always outweigh the benefits, according to a new study which found that some United Kingdom graduates earn less than their non-graduate peers 10 years after leaving university.
But more than 10% of male graduates from three universities – LSE, as well as Oxford and Cambridge – earned more than that figure in the same period.
Lee Elliot Major, chief executive of the Sutton Trust – a group whose aim is to promote social mobility – said that the findings of the study help to explain “why social mobility remains poor in the United Kingdom, despite a big expansion in higher education”, and that “we all need to redouble efforts to improve the networks available to undergraduates, their access to internships and their access to skills valued by employers”. However, the researches noted that there was an important regional dimension to consider. Median earning for medical graduates were £50,000 10 years after graduation, and for economics graduates earning were about £40,000. The average gap in earnings is £8,000 a year for men and £5,300 a year for women.
Advertisement
Much of this advantage could be attributed to the university and course.
