Cambridge study details state school students’ ‘advantage’ over private school peers

Though interesting this is not at all surprising. These findings need careful interpretation not to fall into a trap of flawed conclusion. What will be more useful and interesting is to see if private school pupils with an average degree (say 2:2) from Russell Group University have life time earnings which are far greater than those of state school pupils with better performance (2:1 or greater) in similar degrees. The data reported in this news item merely shows that while it is enough for private school pupils to 'get into' a top University to ensure good career prospects, for state school pupils it is not good enough that they have made it to a good university unless their own performance is also very good. Thus the findings of the study reinforce the fact that barriers to social mobility exist and state school pupils have to 'invest' a lot more of effort than their 'private school' peers. Similar results are found in the case of gender in many countries - girls on average need to invest in many more years of education and have to perform a lot better to have any reasonable chance of competing for jobs than boys. Hence, tertiary enrolment and completion in many countries tend to be dominated by women. That does not mean gender equality is not an issue. Quite the opposite indeed.