To inform educational policy, it is often more relevant to know the returns to educational investments that accrue (or would have accrued) to the marginal entrant in education, rather than to the average learner.

This project estimates the individual wage returns to staying on in full-time education past the age of 16, and to completing any form of higher education (HE) for individuals at the margin in the educational decision. The key issue obviously concerns the identification of the individual at the margin. A number of marginal individuals are of interest in their own right and allow us to shed light on distinct questions: those who could have but did not achieve the level of education being looked at (of special interest when compared to those who did achieve it); those eligible to undertake the qualification, those with low, intermediate or high values of the probability of achieving that educational outcome; and those defined as marginal entrants on a policy basis, in particular based on their ability, socio-economic background and family income.

Our general finding is that there are substantial returns to both staying on and to HE for all subgroups of the population, though we have uncovered some variation in returns, this being particularly the case for men.