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The\u00a0government has promised<\/a>\u00a0to crack down on \u201crip-off degrees\u201d in England. It will place a cap on student numbers for courses that deliver \u201cpoor outcomes\u201d for students \u2013 because they have high drop-out rates or do not lead to well-paying jobs.<\/p>\n The intention of the government intervention is to ensure that students get appropriate value from their courses. It also intends to make sure taxpayers aren\u2019t left to foot the bill when students don\u2019t earn enough to repay all of their student loans.<\/p>\n But capping student numbers on these courses may well penalise students from disadvantaged backgrounds.<\/p>\n The courses which face capped numbers are likely to be ones\u00a0offered by universities<\/a>\u00a0that are more accessible to students from disadvantaged backgrounds, who are\u00a0more likely to attend<\/a>\u00a0less selective universities local to them. But less-selective universities \u2013 and the courses they offer \u2013 play a significant role in driving social mobility and supporting the\u00a0local economy<\/a>.<\/p>\n Educational charity the Sutton Trust has produced\u00a0rankings<\/a>\u00a0that measure universities\u2019 impact on social mobility, looking at the degree choices and earnings aged 30 of people born between 1985 and 1988.<\/p>\n Universities are ranked by comparing the proportion of disadvantaged students who attended with the proportion of those students who went on to achieve high earnings. This ranking places newer, less selective universities, such as the University of Westminster and the University of Greenwich, in the top five.<\/p>\n What\u2019s more,\u00a0research carried out<\/a>\u00a0by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the Sutton Trust and the Department for Education looked at the social mobility impact of particular university courses.<\/p>\n Because the outcomes for particular universities or courses are affected by the characteristics of the students taking those courses \u2013 their academic ability, for instance \u2013 this research controlled for factors such as GCSE results. It found that courses that might be considered to have low outcomes\u00a0actually contributed<\/a>\u00a0strongly to social mobility, because of the lower previous achievements of students taking those subjects.<\/p>\n Highly ranked institutions \u2013 such as Oxford, Cambridge and the most selective Russell Group universities \u2013 are generally\u00a0less accessible<\/a>\u00a0to those from\u00a0disadvantaged backgrounds<\/a>.<\/p>\n These institutions admit\u00a0higher proportions<\/a>\u00a0of students from more privileged backgrounds, who are more likely to have the social capital, financial resources and professional experience to help them both graduate from their course and go on to a well-paid job. This might be one reason for their very good performance on measures of quality such as those used in the regulatory framework.<\/p>\n Overall, a student from a low-income background is\u00a0four times<\/a>\u00a0more likely to be socially mobile if they attend university.<\/p>\n Universities are already regulated based on their student outcomes. In 2022, England\u2019s university regulator, the\u00a0Office for Students<\/a>\u00a0(OfS), introduced a new\u00a0regulatory framework<\/a>, which assesses how many students go on from their first to their second year, graduate, and go into a professional job or further study within 15 months.<\/p>\n The OfS\u00a0publishes data<\/a>\u00a0on these student outcomes. It can intervene when universities do not meet minimum expectations, and has the power to impose a range of penalties. These range from additional monitoring or fines to de-registration as a provider of higher education. The cap on student numbers for particular courses now planned by the government is an additional penalty. One in five graduates would be better off if they hadn\u2019t gone to university.<\/p>\n That\u2019s unacceptable.<\/p>\n So @RishiSunak<\/a> is cracking down on rip-off university degrees and boosting skills-based learning.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s how👇 pic.twitter.com\/hukazYOo0A<\/a><\/p>\n — UK Prime Minister (@10DowningStreet) July 17, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Student outcomes<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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