Higher education

The new report has re-examined the current funding system for undergraduate higher education, highlighting its uncertain public finance implications.

This evaluation compares the education outcomes of Social Mobility Foundation (SMF) participants (collected by SMF via participant questionnaires) with outcomes for a group of pupils with similar observable characteristics (such as performance at secondary school and neighbourhood context), observed in administrative data. This report focuses on the education outcomes for four cohorts of participants with the SMF: the first cohort featured entered the programme in 2009 (referred to as the 2009 cohort), the second in 2010, the third in 2011 and the fourth in 2012.

This briefing note looks at the implications of Labour's proposals for higher education funding plans.

The authors provide evidence on whether providing university students with feedback on their past exam performance affects their future exam performance.

Human capital and inequality in the United Kingdom

This paper provides new evidence on what happens to young people from different backgrounds once they arrive at university, exploring socio-economic differences in drop-out, degree completion and degree class.

Online Appendix to accompany IFS Working Paper W14/31: socio-economic differences in university outcomes in the UK: drop-out, degree completion and degree class by Claire Crawford

This paper focuses on individuals who have completed university and provides new evidence on differences in graduates’ earnings by socio-economic background, with a particular focus on whether they attended a private school.

This note summarises the results of two related research projects. With funding from the ESRC through its Secondary Data Analysis Initiative, and the Nuffield Foundation, Jo Blanden (University of Surrey), Emilia Del Bono (University of Essex), Kirstine Hansen (Institute of Education), Sandra McNally (University of Surrey) and Birgitta Rabe (University of Essex) investigated the impact of free early education on children’s development.

This research looks at the impact of changes to financial support for students in higher education

Ellen Greaves stresses the value of using national pupil data to improve education research and policy.

This paper finds differences in the age at which cognitive skills are tested accounts for the vast majority of the difference in outcomes between children who are born at different times of the year.