Government loans introduced in 2015 have enabled low- and
moderate-income students to undertake postgraduate study, but
rising tuition fees risk wiping out these gains, according to new
research published by the Sutton Trust today.
The research – by academics from the University of York using the
latest available data to measure changes over time - found that
the proportion of working-class graduates progressing on to a
taught masters doubled between 2013/14 and 2017/18 (from 6% to
12.9%).
However, those from working class backgrounds are much less
likely to enter and graduate from university in the first place.
But even from within the pool of graduates – in which
working-class students are already under-represented - those from
better off backgrounds are still more likely to progress on to
postgraduate study, with to 8.6% doing so in 2013/14 compared to
14.2% in 2017/18.
The decreasing gap in participation between working class
graduates and their better-off peers, is down to the introduction
of postgraduate loans in England in 2015. Before they were
introduced, students had to cover tuition fees and living costs
themselves.
While today’s report welcomes the introduction of postgraduate
loans, it warns that none of the loans available in the UK cover
fully the cost of full-time postgraduate education without having
to get resources from elsewhere.
In England, for example, the maximum loan available for fees and
maintenance is £11,200. Yet the research finds that the average
tuition fees for a classroom based postgraduate programme at a
Golden Triangle university – Oxford, Cambridge, and some top
institutions in London – is £10,900. The total cost of study at
these institutions is now over £20,000 per annum when living
costs are included.
The research further finds that average tuition fees at a Golden
Triangle university have risen by over 100% since 2011, when this
figure was £5,440.
Postgraduate education has grown in the last few decades and is
increasingly seen as the new frontier for social mobility.
Between 2007/08 and 2019/20, the number of UK students starting a
postgraduate course grew by 53%, from 249,480 to 381,800. Those
with postgraduate degrees tend to fare better in the jobs market,
with graduates from master’s or doctoral degrees earning around
20 percent more than those with undergraduate degrees only.
To ensure that postgraduate education contributes to social
mobility in the UK, the Sutton Trust is calling for further
reforms to the loans system to remove remaining financial
barriers. In particular, the Trust would like to see the funding
available better reflect the full costs of postgraduate study,
with grants available for students from lower-income backgrounds.
The Trust is also recommending that universities should extend
their widening access work to postgraduate level.
Sir Peter Lampl, founder and chair of the Sutton Trust
and chair of the Education Endowment Foundation, said:
“As rates of postgraduate study have increased, so too has the
role of postgraduate study in promoting social mobility. But with
postgraduate study costing over £20,000 a year it’s it is out of
reach for many students from poorer homes, who are already
carrying a lot of undergraduate debt.
“The introduction of loans in 2015 was a welcome reform and has
done much to improve access in the past few years. But the rising
cost of courses at the most prestigious institutions is outpacing
the loans available for young people, who also need to cover
their living costs. We’d like to see grants for living costs
introduced for lower-income students.”
NOTES TO EDITORS
- The Sutton Trust was founded by
Sir Peter Lampl in 1997 to improve social mobility in Britain.
The Trust has influenced government policy on more than 30
occasions; its programmes have to date given 50,000 young people
the opportunity to change their lives; and it has published over
200 pieces of agenda-setting research.
- Methods: To assess the impact of postgraduate loans on
access, researchers from the University of York used data from
the Destination of Leavers of Higher Education survey (DLHE
(Destination of Leavers of Higher Education), curated by the UK’s
Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), to examine educational
destinations of UK undergraduate leavers between 2012/13 and
2016/17, including those graduates that started a postgraduate
degree between 2013/14 and 2017/8. The researchers also used the
first round of the new Graduate Outcomes survey, also managed by
HESA, to examine outcomes for 2017/18 UK undergraduate leavers,
15 months after graduation. The two datasets are not directly
comparable, so cannot be used in combination to look at changes
over time.
- To look at the costs of postgraduate study, the researchers
used the Reddin survey of tuition fees and Which?student
budget calculator, a tool advertised by UCAS to help prospective
students understand the average expenses they may incur when
pursuing a degree at any UK higher education institution.
