Higher education funding and access

Understand this issue

Behind the numbers: reassessing investment in skills and training

comment

"There are concrete steps, such as reforming the Apprenticeship Levy, that the government should take to improve the existing skills system."

12 October 2023

Schools and segregation: a comparison of Scotland and England

comment

We study how the different ways pupils are assigned to schools in England and Scotland relate to income segregation in schools and neighbourhoods.

10 October 2023

Big changes to HS2 and education will prove a real test for Rishi Sunak

comment

"Too many announcements, not enough evident strategy." Paul Johnson in The Times on the announcements in last week's Conservative Party Conference.

9 October 2023

Policy analysis

Annual report on education spending in England: 2023

report

Our sixth annual report on education spending shows changes over time across different stages of education, as well as geographic differences.

11 December 2023

Schools serving disadvantaged children have faced the biggest funding cuts

press release

Our annual education spending report finds that rising costs are placing increasing pressure on all areas of education.

11 December 2023

Socio-economic inequality in Scottish education

report

We examine how less affluent students perform compared with their more affluent peers in PISA tests, ahead of the new data release in December 2023.

16 November 2023

Academic research

First generation elite: the role of school networks

working paper

This paper shows differences in social capital are a key driver of the high intergenerational persistence in elite education.

5 May 2023

The effect of classroom rank on learning throughout elementary school: experimental evidence from Ecuador

working paper

We study the impact of classroom rank on children’s learning using a unique experiment from Ecuador.

8 August 2023

Exploiting discontinuities in secondary school attendance to evaluate value added

working paper

We use a new empirical strategy to test various measures of school effectiveness in England.

19 July 2023