Opening up England’s best universities has quietly been one of the greatest public policy successes of the last decade. Disadvantaged pupils are 61 per cent more likely to attend university than in 2006.
This should be heralding in a new age of meritocracy, destroying the value of the old school tie for good. It is not. What Michael Gove termed “The Berlin Wall” – the gulf between state and private education – is still holding back those educated at state schools in the world of work. Three and a half years after graduating someone educated at an independent school will earn £2,250 more than someone from state school with identical qualifications, a new report by the Sutton Trust funds. Previous research has shown that, all other things being equal, a private education is worth an extra £57,000 in earnings by the age of 42. All graduates with the same degree might be equal, but some are evidently much more equal than others.
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