We recommend that the higher education sector should increase its efforts to improve the way it is measured on application forms and validated by admission teams.
Our results also point to the need for contextual admissions.
The effects of family background are shown uk rcs data in young people’s educational achievements early. By the time they get to the age of university application, first in family students might lag behind children of graduate parents quite a bit.
That’s why we’re calling for a continued commitment from universities to make adjusted offers to students which consider first in family status among other socioeconomic, individual and school level information.
We know that higher education plays a fundamental role in improving later labour market and life outcomes, so it remains all the more important that universities are able to identify students who have a high potential to succeed, irrespective of their background.
We believe that focusing on first in family status will help to do this.
Project video
Resources
‘First in family’: higher education choices and labour market outcomes: full report
Next Steps (formerly known as the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England) can be accessed from the UK Data Service.
Published papers:
Shure, N., Henderson, M., & Adamecz-Volgyi, A. (2022). The labor market returns to “first-in-family” university graduates.