Social origin and the financial feasibility of going to university: the role of wage penalties and availability of funding (original) (raw)

Findlay, Jeanette ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2344-4881 and Hermannsson, Kristinn ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9957-3914(2019) Social origin and the financial feasibility of going to university: the role of wage penalties and availability of funding.Studies in Higher Education, 44(11), pp. 2025-2040. (doi: 10.1080/03075079.2018.1488160)

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Abstract

The evidence on why students from lower social origin are persistently underrepresented in higher education (HE) suggests social, educational and economic factors all play a role. We concentrate on the influence of monetary costs/benefits and how these are influenced by social origin. In particular, we consider the effect of a class-based wage penalty in the labour market and, using evidence from a large-scale survey of Scottish students, we show how the greater financial constraints facing working-class students affects the incentive to participate in HE. Using a simple model of human capital investment, the low rate of working-class participation in HE is shown to be consistent with rational behaviour, i.e. weighing the monetary costs and benefits, participating in HE is a less attractive investment proposition for some students. We conduct simulations which suggest this could be mitigated by generous income-contingent support.

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