The logical outcome of this finding is that we should abolish state schools altogether and everyone should go to private schools.
For we do, righteously, desire that people earn more. We want the country and the people in it to be richer. So, we find that private schooling leads to higher wages therefore all should have private schooling.
Private school pupils earn 10 per cent more by the time they are 25 even if they do not have better grades than their state educated peers, a study has found.
Alumni of fee-paying schools are also more likely to have “high-status” occupations by this age, according to academics at University College London’s Institute of Education.
Researchers analysed data from the Next Steps cohort study, which followed the progress of over 4,800 people who were born in 1990.
They found that the average annual salary of a 25-year-old who had gone to a private school was £28,974 while the average salary of their state educated peers was £20,857-a-year, a difference of 35 per cent.
Some will cavil at the logic being used here but we can safely ignore them. For this is how we think through educational problems in this country.
We noted that university graduates earn more money, we desire all to earn more, so let’s send more to university. That’s how the percentage of the age cohort going up went from the 12% of my youth to the 50% now.
Those who note that it has just led to qualification inflation are wrong for the underlying logic is entirely sound. Clearly.
And anyway, what’s wrong with a world in which baristas all need a good 2:1 in their arts degree?
The implication is that it’s the old-boys network creating the pay gap. They say that the grades are the same, so it’s not the better academic results. Could it be that private schools also teach things like self-respect, self-confidence etc that can lead to higher earnings?
One outcome of the gender pay gap research is that men are more confident about asking for more money than women. Could the above points also create a pay gap?
Well, of course, correlation is not causation; for example, students at for-profit schools may self-select for having more affluent and more involved parents to begin with. But I agree, it’s as rigorous as any of the defenses of government schools, such as that they are crucial to literacy and civility.
What do you say to a university graduate?
‘I’ll have a Big Mac and fries please.’
Another interesting question to pursue is if grade inflation is the same at both types of institutions?
Quick fix: We should change the mane of all state schools to “Such and Such Private School”.
We just keep on going until all our children are above average.
Just what people at the lower socio economic end need;- PRIVATE SCHOOLS! Who’s going to pay for their education?