The “Universities and Social Mobility” report has ranked us 6th best for social mobility among the economics department, and top 8% among all disciplines in the country, with a mobility of 4.1%.

The Sutton Trust and the Institute for Fiscal Studies have just released their joint “Universities and Social Mobility” report.

One of the missions of higher education is to promote social mobility, whereby students from low-income backgrounds achieve high-paying jobs and careers.

Using data from the Longitudinal Education Outcomes the report presents social mobility rates for each university course (e.g. Economics at Royal Holloway) in England. The IFS team has computed the share of students who were on free school meals at school, which they define as the “Access Rate” of low-income students to higher education, and the “Success Rate”, which they define as the share of graduates in the top 20% of the earnings distribution at age 30. They then calculated a “Mobility Rate” as the product of the Access Rate and Success Rate.

The average mobility across all subjects and university is only 1.3% but Economics is the fourth best subject in terms of mobility, after Pharmacology, Computing and Law. Even better, Economics at Royal Holloway has a mobility rate of 4.1%, with our low-income students having a stellar outcome on the job market – with a success rate 61.4% !!!

We are very pleased and proud that our efforts to attract and support students from all backgrounds are paying off and that the skills and qualities of our graduates are being recognised!