If you’re wondering why you’re at uni, never fear, because it turns out that going to university does improve your chances of doing well after graduation. Well, that’s if you went to private school and study physics, according to two reports released today.
First off, The Social Market Foundation has found that privately-educated children would earn £200,000 more than state school pupils by the time they get to their forties. The amount that more than offsets the £142,000 spent on the average £10,200 yearly private school fees in the UK. But why is it that private school pupils fare so much better than their state school counterparts?
Well, the jaw-dropping answer is… private school pupils are ‘more likely to get good A Levels, more likely to get degrees and to get them from the most selective universities’ according to The Independent.
After that clanger, comes a report from the Higher Education Foundation Funding Council, which finds that students, overall, are a lot happier with their education. ‘Overall student satisfaction has increased,’ a spokesperson also said. However, ‘There is considerable variation between subjects of study, and between different student characteristics such as ethnicity.’
Sally Hunt, general secretary of the University and College Union, told The Guardian that this is mostly thanks to staff who’ve upped their game. ‘Despite unpopular and chaotic university funding changes from governments in the past nine years, students remain satisfied with their degrees and it is the staff in our universities who deserve enormous credit for that.’
She added, ‘The government and universities cannot continue to simply expect more for less. We need proper investment and commitment to higher education.’
And if you look at other research, universities are racking up a record number of complaints from students annoyed that they’re not getting their money’s worth after the 2010 hike in tuition fees. Over 20,000 complaints were made – a 10% rise from the previous year – in 2013 alone.
Unfortunately, if you’re at a state school and want to get involved in a creative career, the odds do seem stacked against you, but there is hope from the unlikeliest of places. With commentators suggesting that Prince Charles’s pleas to various governments for more grammar schools weren’t actually that off the mark, hopefully there will be future opportunities to change how things are done. Plus, the Social Market Foundation has recommended that £200m of the government’s money be put towards subsidising private school fees – basically turning private schools into semi-grammar schools.
If that means getting better education to those from less privileged backgrounds, then surely that’s some positive to come from this?
Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophwilkinson
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.