Education and skills

This paper examines the equilibrium effects of alternative financial aid policies intended to promote college participation. We build an overlapping generations life cycle model with education, labor supply, and consumption/saving decisions.

We examine the labor market consequences of an exogenous increase in the supply of skilled labor in several cities in Norway, resulting from the construction of new colleges in the 1970s.

This report provides new estimates of total spending by the government on children in England, including benefits, education spending,services for vulnerable children and healthcare. In the most recent year of data (2017–18), total spending was over £120 billion or over £10,000 per child under 18.

It is well known that the average graduate earns more than non graduates, and that university graduates from certain subjects and from certain universities earn considerably more than others. For example, five years after graduation, men from the highest earnings universities earn almost 50% more than graduates from other Russell Group universities (30% for women), while male Russell Group graduates earn over 40% more than those who attended the average post-1992 institution (35% for women).

This note was submitted as evidence to the Education Committee Inquiry on School and College Funding.

We summarise the recent evidence produced by the IFS which relates to the post-18 funding review.

There are longstanding concerns about the recruitment and retention of teachers in the UK . In recent years there has also been much debate about the extent to which changes to the initial teacher education system have affected the recruitment and retention problem. These concerns are most acute in so called “shortage” subject areas, such as physics .

In October, the Prime Minister called for an inquiry into the student loan system for higher education (HE). In this briefing note, we focus on two of the more unpopular features of the current system. We explore government options for reducing the interest rates charged on student loans, from the current levels of RPI + 3% while studying and RPI + 0–3% (depending on income) after leaving university, and for reintroducing living-cost grants – which do not have to be repaid – for students from lower-income families. This briefing note will be submitted as evidence for the inquiry.

We used national data to study differences in academic achievement between 5-year-old children with an isolated oral cleft and the general population. We also assessed differences by cleft type.