PhDs and master’s ‘overwhelmingly slanted’ to wealthy students

Inequality among students on master’s and doctoral degrees could represent a “worrying” social mobility concern for the UK, a governmental advisory body has warned.

The Social Mobility Commission (SMC) also found that the disparity in higher education entry rates is one of the largest gaps monitored in its second annual State of the Nation report for 2023.

Alun Francis, chair of the advisory body, said that the traditional approach to social mobility focuses too much on the “university route”, pathways to professional careers and “long leaps in social mobility”.

Instead, he advocated for a wider focus – with this year’s report separating higher degrees from first degrees and using a more detailed class structure.

The findings for 2021 show that 26 per cent of 25- to 29-year-olds from the top socio-economic background in the UK had achieved a master’s or a PhD – compared with just 7 per cent from the most disadvantaged group.

This means that those from the higher professional class were about 3.7 times more likely to obtain a higher degree than the lower working class – a much greater level of inequality than seen previously.

“The reason that might represent a bit of a problem is that employers are increasingly looking for higher degrees,” Michael Pandazis, head of analysis at the SMC, told Times Higher Education.

“Combined with the fees being unregulated for higher degrees, where they can essentially charge what they want, it could be a social mobility problem because access to higher degrees is overwhelmingly slanted in favour of people with higher professional parents.

“There are good and bad findings in the report – this is definitely a negative one, it’s more of a worrying sign.”

He said that the SMC will want to track this measure over time to determine exactly how much of a barrier it is putting in the way of employment.

Those aged 25 to 29 from the higher professional class were about 2.7 times more likely to have at least a first degree than their less well-off peers.

And a 30 percentage point gap was found in the higher education entry rate between those from the higher professional and lower working class – which the SMC said is one of the largest class inequalities it monitors.

The report found that the proportion of children obtaining degrees whose parents did not varies significantly by region – at 39 per cent in London compared with just 22 per cent in the East Midlands.

This upward educational mobility was also found to be much more common among certain ethnic groups, particularly among British Chinese people.

The SMC did find considerable improvement in relative educational mobility since the 1990s. This means that people’s chances of obtaining a degree have become less related to whether their parents had a degree or not.

patrick.jack@timeshighereducation.com