TheParagon-Education

The public are being “misled” over the value of university education, the Government’s statistics watchdog has ruled.

Official figures which claim to show that graduates out-earn non-graduates by more than £10,000 a year are flawed, the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) has warned.

The average gap between what graduates earn compared to those without a degree – known as the annual “graduate premium” figure – has long been used as one of the biggest justifications for going to university.

The Department for Education (DfE) figures claim that average earnings for graduates are consistently above those of non-graduates by around £10,500 a year.

However, as thousands of teenagers sit their A-levels with the hope of going to university this year, the OSR says the “current framing of the graduate premium has limitations” and it could be “misleading for users”.

The review comes in response to a challenge to their veracity by Paul Wiltshire, a father of four and an accountant with a degree in maths and statistics.

The ruling from the OSR, which ensures official statistics are trustworthy and valuable, will fuel growing concerns that young people are being oversold the value of university, and that too many are studying “Mickey Mouse” degrees that offer no solid prospect of high-flying careers.

Reacting to the review, critics called university a “rip-off” and warned that teenagers are being sold a “pipedream based on flawed government statistics”.

Prompted by concerns that thousands of students every year were graduating with massive debts but could only find low-paid jobs, he carried out a six-month analysis of graduate outcome statistics.

Mr Wiltshire’s research – “Why is the average Graduate Premium falling?” – blows a hole in the claim that the overall premium is £10,500 a year.

In it, he shows that as university participation began to rise above 30 per cent of the young-adult population around two decades ago, the graduate premium disappeared to an average of zero for the extra graduates in the higher education system.

Official figures show that five years after leaving university, graduates with four As at A-level have a salary range of £33,900 to £61,000, with the median at £47,100. Those with three Bs earn between £25,600 and £43,100. However, for those with three Cs or below, future earnings fall to a range of £21,500 to £34,700.

Mr Wiltshire’s analysis shows that around 160,000 of the UK’s 2024 student intake of 495,000 will earn around the same as or less than non-graduates, but will be saddled with an average student debt of £45,000.

The 58-year-old sent his analysis to the OSR earlier this year, prompting the body to review the statistics.

The findings of that review say the statistics are flawed and could be giving young people a false impression of the value of their degrees.

The OSR says that as the data set used to compile graduate premium statistics does not take into account prior attainment (A-level results and their equivalents), they are of limited use.

Mr Wiltshire claimed that the flawed graduate premium statistics were selling young people a lie.

“There are multiple reasons why teenagers are choosing the university route as opposed to going into work but the main one is the societal perception that there is a healthy graduate premium,” he told The Telegraph.

“Because of the graduate premium, students are told ‘don’t worry about the debt, it will be worth your while’. But the case I brought to the OSR and its verdict show that this is a false promise.

“You would have thought that given the importance of the graduate premium statistics in young people’s choices, the DfE would have worked harder to ensure they are valid, but they are clearly not. The way they are calculated is fundamentally wrong.”

He added that the concern was not just about so-called Mickey Mouse degrees, but about the supply of “good degrees” that take no account of the available jobs. For instance, Law Society data show that around 30,000 law graduates each year are chasing just 5,000 traineeships.