Tertiary education
Our tertiary work team focuses on the role of universities and further education providers in providing opportunities for all young people.
Inequalities are perpetuated by the post-16 education system. Young people from different backgrounds enter alternative pathways such as:
- traditional academic
- technical routes
- or leave education altogether.
We seek to understand who takes these different pathways, key risk factors associated with this, and the consequences of these pathways in the labour market and beyond.
Our work uses the current research base to create evidence-led interventions designed to reduce inequalities in information, advice and guidance (IAG) at key decision making points.
Our research
Working papers
- Young people's subjective wellbeing in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from a representative cohort study in England – Jake Anders and Erica Holt-White
- Inequalities in young peoples’ educational experiences and wellbeing during the Covid-19 pandemic – Jake Anders, Lindsey Macmillan, Patrick Sturgis and Gill Wyness
- First-in-their-family students at university: Can non-cognitive skills compensate for social origin? – Rebecca Edwards, Rachael Gibson, Colm Harmon & Stefanie Schurer
- Grade Expectations: How well can we predict future grades based on past performance? – Jake Anders, Catherine Dilnot, Lindsey Macmillan and Gill Wyness
- Minority Report: the impact of predicted grades on university admissions of disadvantaged groups – Richard Murphy and Gill Wyness
- Matching in the Dark? Inequalities in student to degree match – Stuart Campbell, Lindsey Macmillan, Richard Murphy and Gill Wyness
Briefing notes
- Higher Education funding: what's the problem and what are the potential solutions?
- Is higher education still worth the cost?
- How should universities select students?
- Higher education applications and admissions
Blog posts
- Levelling up education and skills: a recipe for success? – Claire Crawford, Laura Outhwaite, Sam Sims and Gill Wyness
- The challenges of COVID-19 for young people need a new cohort study: introducing COSMO – Jake Anders and Carl Cullinane
- We won’t reduce inequalities in post-16 progression until we make 'lower attainers' more visible – Ruth Lupton, Stephanie Thomson, Lorna Unwin and Sanne Velthuis
- Exams 2021: So what now? Part 2: CEPEO’s response to the DfE/Ofqual consultation on summer assessment 2020/21 – Jake Anders, Lindsey Macmillan and Gill Wyness
- Exams 2021: So what now? – Jake Anders, Lindsey Macmillan, and Gill Wyness
- Predicted grades – what do we know, and why does it matter? – Gill Wyness
- Widening participation practitioners won’t let COVID-19 closures stop them from delivering HE access activities – Anna Mountford-Zimdars
- The COVID-19 crisis and educational inequality – Simon Burgess and Anna Vignoles
- Lockdown and the 11-plus – Matt Dickson and Lindsey Macmillan
- Why wait until clearing to improve information available to students? – Gill Wyness
- Why have we waited until now to improve the accuracy of predicted grades? – Gill Wyness
- What will universities do to soften the financial blow? – John Jerrim
- What is the nature and extent of student-university mismatch? – Gill Wyness
- The ‘graduate parent’ advantage in teacher assessed grades – Jake Anders, Lindsey Macmillan, Patrick Sturgis, and Gill Wyness
- A-levelling up: the thorny path back from teacher assessed grades – Jake Anders, Claire Crawford, and Gill Wyness
- Turbulence on the glide path: A-level results 2022 – Jake Anders and Lindsey Macmillan
- Understanding young people’s unequal experience of the pandemic: now and into the future – Jake Anders
- Do contextual admissions hold back productivity? – Gill Wyness, Lindsey Macmillan, Claire Crawford and Richard Murphy
- Should we abolish personal statements from the university application process? – Dominic Kelly and Gill Wyness
- Why we should introduce a post-qualification applications (PQA) system for post-18 education – Gill Wyness
- Social mobility scorecards for universities – Oliver Cassagneau-Francis