College education, intelligence, and disadvantage: Policy lessons from the UK in 1960-2004

Event recording

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Andrea will assess how the enlargement of university access enacted in the UK following the 1963 Robbins Report provides an ideal case study to draw lessons for the future. He will explain that this expansion is associated with a decline of the average intelligence of graduates and of the college wage premium across cohorts, and that it mainly benefited relatively less intelligent students from advantaged socioeconomic backgrounds. 

Structural estimates and counterfactual simulations suggest that the implemented policy was unfit to reach high-ability individuals as Robbins had instead advocated, and that a meritocratic selection of university students would have attained that goal and would have also been more egalitarian.

This seminar is jointly hosted with CReAM: Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration.

This event will be particularly useful for those interested in higher education and education policy.

This is a hybrid event and can be joined either in-person or online.

CEPEO seminar series

The Centre for Education Policy and Equalising Opportunities (CEPEO) hosts an online research seminar series where guest speakers present cutting edge research.   Join policymakers, researchers and practitioners to explore the pressing questions of our time in education policy and equalising opportunities.

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• Centre for Education Policy and Equalising Opportunities (CEPEO)
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• Department of Learning and Leadership