No matter what A-levels you get, your parents’ wealth will still determine your future

Writing for the Telegraph, Duncan Exley cites recent Sutton Trust research regarding the differences is graduate salaries between private and state pupils.

Across the country on Thursday, anxious students and their parents will get their A-level results.
For most families the stakes are high. A good university, a respectable degree, and a stable job are tantalisingly close. Understandably, it is a nerve-jangling time.
But as important as these results are, they are not as important as many would like to believe. In fact, a wealth of evidence shows there is another significant determinant of a child’s success: the income of their parents.

…

Graduates who were educated at private school are still paid 7 per cent more on average, three and a half years after graduation, than their state-educated contemporaries – even after attending the same university, studying the same subject and leaving with the same degree class.

Research from the Sutton Trust published last week even found that three and a half years after graduation, private school graduates in “top jobs” receive £4,500 more than their state school counterparts. The Trust concluded that only half of this difference in pay could be explained by higher academic achievement or by the university they attended.

Read the full article here.