A worldwide trend towards high levels of participation in higher education, paired with concerns about the post-university destinations of an increasing pool of graduates, have brought about two parallel phenomena: a process of sharp stratification in higher education and the growing relevance of postgraduate education as undergraduate study becomes nearly ubiquitous, particularly among the most advantaged groups of students. To date, the literature on socioeconomic inequalities and access to higher education has focussed on undergraduate education, with some researchers specifically investigating access to the most prestigious institutions. We contribute to this body of research by investigating the effects of socioeconomic characteristics on access to postgraduate education at those universities believed to deliver elite forms of higher education. We look at access to ‘elite’ postgraduate education among English graduates, operationalised as belonging to the Russell Group of research-intensive universities. We analyse an exceptionally large dataset (N = 533,885) capturing graduate destinations, including postgraduate education at specific institutions. We find that socioeconomic inequalities in attending an elite postgraduate degree persist, but these are mediated by educational variables. Socioeconomically advantaged students are more likely to attain a good degree and to attend an elite institution at the undergraduate level, which powerfully predicts access to elite postgraduate education.
Higher education researchers have paid little attention to postgraduate participation. This issue has become more prominent in England following the introduction of high undergraduate fees. Many predicted that master's participation would decline consequently, strengthening known inequalities in access by socio-economic background at master's level. The introduction of master's loans in 2016/17 intended to help those without access to independent resources afford master's study. We investigate whether this intention was realised by analysing an exceptionally detailed dataset containing information on the destinations of all UK first-degree graduates between 2012/13 and 2016/17 (N = 1,360,965). In doing so we test two hypotheses: master's loans will increase overall enrolment; and latent demand for master's among underrepresented groups will mean rates of master's participation will increase more rapidly for those groups when loans are available. Our results confirm the hypotheses: 1) after the introduction of master's loans in England, overall enrolment rates increased from 8.9% in 2015/16 to 12.5% the year loans were introduced; and 2) the probability of progressing to a taught master's across socioeconomic groups changed substantially, with students from hitherto underrepresented groups reaching similar rates than their more advantaged counterparts after 2016/17.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.