Higher education

CEP election analysis

Further and higher education

There are not enough graduates for sectors in which the UK has a comparative advantage and there are too few people educated to sub-degree level compared to other countries....Read more...

Blog

LSE Inequalities:

The spiralling costs of higher education are hitting stay at home students harder

Since the pandemic, a new divide has emerged in higher education between commuter students, on the one hand, and on-campus students, on the other. Reporting on the findings of a new student money and wellbeing survey, Le...Read more...

Blog

LSE British Politics and Policy:

Mapping changes in educational achievement across England

As part of the LSE Festival 2023, the Mapping People and Change exhibition visualises data through maps on various socio-economic issues, providing insights into the impact of a rapidly changing world on people and commu...Read more...

Blog

IZA World of Labor:

Judging affirmative action

With the American Supreme Court preparing to hear two cases on the use of race-based affirmative action in university admissions, the stage is set for a landmark opinion that would prevent race from being considered in a...Read more...

Blog

Economics Observatory:

US student debt forgiveness: should the UK follow suit?

A recently announced policy package will ease the burden of student debt for millions of Americans. Richard Murphy, Stuart Campbell, Gill Wyness and Lindsey Macmillan contend that, due to differences between the national...Read more...

Blog

VoxEU:

Inequalities in student to degree match

Researchers find students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are more likely to be undermatched to their degree courses both academically and in terms of earnings potential. Women are more likely than men to be underma...Read more...

CVER Research Paper

The Effects of College Capital Projects on Student Outcome

The general debate on the relationship between school resources and student outcomes is an old and controversial one (for reviews see, for example, Hanushek, 1989, 1997 and Gibbons and McNally, 2013), although there is l...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Learning loss since lockdown

Young people in education have lost significant amounts of time in school during the pandemic - and this carries risks of lifetime scars. Lee Elliot Major, Andrew Eyles and Stephen Machin reveal the scale of learning los...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Public Economics:

Entry through the narrow door: the costs of just failing high stakes exams

In many countries, important thresholds in examinations act as a gateway to higher levels of education and/or improved employment prospects. This paper examines the consequences of just failing a particularly important h...Read more...

Journal article

Education Economics:

Minority report: the impact of predicted grades on university admissions of disadvantaged groups

We study the UK's university application system, in which students apply based on predicted examination grades, rather than actual results. Using three years of UK university applications data we find that only 16% of ap...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Inequalities in student to course match: evidence from linked administrative data

This paper examines inequalities in the match between student quality and university quality using linked administrative data from schools, universities and tax authorities. We analyse two measures of match at the univer...Read more...

Journal article

Economics of Education Review:

The Economic Impact of Universities: Evidence from Across the Globe

We develop a new dataset using UNESCO source materials on the location of nearly 15,000 universities in about 1,500 regions across 78 countries, some dating back to the 11th Century. We estimate fixed effects models at t...Read more...

CEP industrial strategy paper

Universities and industrial strategy in the UK: review of evidence and implications for policy

As producers of human capital, innovation and as large institutions in their own right, UK universities can make important contributions across the five foundations that underpin the government's Industrial Strategy: peo...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Higher education funding reforms: a comprehensive analysis of educational and labour market outcomes in England

This paper investigates the impact of changes in the funding of higher education in England on students’ choices and outcomes. Over the last two decades – through three major reforms in 1998, 2006 and 2012 – undergraduat...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The end of free college in England: implications for quality, enrolments and equity

Despite increasing financial pressures on higher education systems throughout the world, many governments remain resolutely opposed to the introduction of tuition fees, and some countries and states where tuition fees ha...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Testing means-tested aid

Inequalities do not end once students enter higher education. Yet, the majority of papers on the effectiveness of higher education aid examine its impact on college enrolment. In this paper, we provide evidence on the ca...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Graduate returns, degree class premia and higher education expansion in the UK

We investigate the extent to which graduate returns vary according to the class of degree achieved by UK university students and examine changes over time in estimated degree class premia. Using a variety of complementar...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Explaining cross-racial differences in the educational gender gap

The sizable gender gap in college enrolment, especially among African Americans, constitutes a puzzling empirical regularity that may have serious consequences on marriage markets, male labor force participation and the ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Rising wage inequality and postgraduate education

This paper considers what has hitherto been a relatively neglected subject in the wage inequality literature, albeit one that has been becoming more important over time, namely the role played by increases in postgraduat...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

University Quality and Graduate Wages in the UK

We examine the links between various measures of university quality and graduate earnings in the United Kingdom. We explore the implications of using different measures of quality and combining them into an aggregate mea...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Labor Economics:

Vive la Revolution! Long-Term Educational Returns of 1968 to the Angry Students

The famous events of May 1968, starting with student riots, threw France into a state of turmoil. As a result, normal examination procedures were abandoned, and the pass rate for various qualifications increased enormous...Read more...