Links between university attended and graduates’ future prospects

Posted on 25 June 2015

Dr Paul Wakeling is supporting calls for more scrutiny of graduates’ prospects, following his study showing variations in access to top positions for graduates.

Graduates (credit: Caro Wallis, Flickr)

Dr Wakeling’s research, carried out with Professor Mike Savage of the London School of Economics, found there were advantages in attending the 24 leading UK ‘Russell Group’ research intensive universities, compared with other higher education establishments. Russell Group graduates were more likely to end up in the ‘top’ class jobs than graduates of other universities.

While the chances of having a higher professional or managerial occupation varied little across Russell Group graduates, the ‘golden triangle’ of Oxbridge and the University of London dominated in terms of the ‘Elite’ class, with Oxford seeing the very highest rate of membership.

The study was based on over 161,000 responses to the BBC’s Great British Class Survey experiment in 2011, which identified a ‘new model of social class’, including Elite, Emergent Service Workers and Precariat. Over half of the respondents to the initial survey were graduates, with data provided on household income, house value, household savings, cultural activities and social networks, along with the names of the universities attended.

For further comments from Dr Wakeling please see: http://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2015/research/graduate-future-prospects-research/

Photo: Graduates (credit: Caro Wallis, Flickr)