This opinion piece was written by Liv Shaw, a final year undergraduate student at University of Manchester. Liv is the first author of Elite English Private Schools and Inequalities in University Destinations, a report published by PEPF.
As a state-educated student from the North East who is the first in their family to attend university, analysing university destinations data for private schools was a strange experience. For so many of students like me there are substantial barriers to higher education. It was therefore hard not to reflect on inequalities between the sectors, when I came across promotional materials, admissions statistics and tailored applications support on countless school websites. While writing this report, it became even clearer the destinations and attainment gaps across the education sector today.
Our study examined students’ higher education destinations, focusing on 30 schools divided into three groups: 1) the most affluent boarding schools; 2) the most affluent day schools; and 3) the least affluent day schools. All schools were part of The Heads’ Conference (HMC), and our data involved school websites and Independent Schools Council (ISC) annual reports to record students’ 2024 destinations. Data was analysed to create comparisons between the three groups, separating destinations between: Oxbridge, Top 25 universities, Top 26-50 universities, and remaining destinations.
Cataloguing over two hundred university destinations, while coming from a region where it feels like so few of my peers are applying to do the same, made it clear just how unequal university access is. Not only were students’ higher education destinations far more regionally diverse and prestigious than my peersapplied but this was true even amongst schools considered the ‘least affluent’ in our study. For many of my peers, higher education does not feel like an option – it is not something our families have ever participated in and as I now begin my career as a trainee teacher, it is not something younger students have strong knowledge about. There is a monumental gap in students having the encouragement, guidance and self-belief necessary to enter these spaces. This context makes this research even more eye-opening.
What did we find?
Writing this report revealed elite private schools have substantially different university destinations compared to less affluent HMC schools, ISC averages and the state sector. Sector level averages mask significant disparities within the private sector that allow for the extensive reproduction of elite success and attainment through entering prestigious higher education institutions at a disproportionate rate.
The cost-of-living crisis and regional disparity are significant challenges when forming the economic basis that private education needs. There was little surprise that our final sample disproportionately consisted of schools from the South of England. Meanwhile, none of the sampled schools were from the North East despite our attempts to include schools from the most and least affluent ends of the private sector spectrum. This poses interesting questions about how region might be important the impacts of private education on university destination.
It was promotions for Oxbridge and Russell Group universities diminishing as schools grew more elite. Here, access to elite universities less celebratory but was rather simply an expected next step for school leavers, with discrete league tables of elite university destinations. Comparatively, the least affluent private schools often shared only select case studies of successful students studying at Russell Group universities for subjects such as law and medicine. This shows the differences in expectations and representations of academic success even at an elite level.
Even amongst those from the most affluent schools not attending Top 50 universities, students’ destinations were often prestigious, subject-specific institutions prized for producing excellence in medicine, art and drama. Meanwhile, attendance at prestigious North American and Canadian universities by elite boarding school pupils towered over the ISC average by 10%. We saw similar trends in attendance at European universities. Here, even our smallest statistics demonstrate just how disparate university access and opportunities are.
Students’ subject choices, A-Level attainment, pupil teacher ratios, tailored support, Ivy League partnerships, academic and social selectivity all further stretch and reproduce the gap between elite schools and other education providers. Numerous schools promote subject and specific tutoring, Ivy League and Russel Group alumni teaching staff and admissions support – showing the multitude of extra steps to university admission.
Finally, developing this research further by examining longitudinally student destinations, studying international destinations and analysing pupil destinations by pupil type (for example if the student is a recipient of a means-tested bursary) would have immense value. Studying the intersectional demographics of students entering elite higher education following private school attendance would provide valuable insight into the diverse experiences of pupils within the sector. Analysis based on, for example, bursary provision, race and disability would allow us to better picture the make-up of those reaching disproportional rates. Meanwhile, expanding the sample of schools would develop this study.
Overall, our report reveals a destination gap built through an accumulative series of disparities including access to economic, cultural and social resources. These compounding inequalities include spending per pupil and income per pupil which fuel the funding disparity endemic within education. The relationship between private schools’ capital accumulation and prestigious educational attainment is clear.
