Article published in 'Britain in 2013 - the nation in focus'

This presentation was delivered on 18 October 2012 at an ESRC conference, 'Social mobility and Equality: early years, education and transition to the labour market'.

The Government’s controversial reforms to higher education funding - involving an increase in the cap on tuition fees to £9,000 per year and the removal of most direct funding for universities - have this month been implemented. However, the new system is substantially more progressive than its predecessor, as the richest graduates are likely to repay ten times as much as the poorest, and would even pay back more than the value of what they borrowed. Here we summarise IFS research assessing who wins and who loses from these reforms.

Delivered at the Work Pensions and Labour Economics (WPEG) conference 2012.

Presentation given for the Wesminster Education Forum, 12 September 2012

It has been reported that the education secretary is planning radical reforms to GCSEs in England. With this year's GCSE results out tomorrow, IFS researchers examine the desirability of these potential reforms and whether they would actually represent a substantial change compared with the current system. The evidence also raises a third and more fundamental question: what are GCSEs for?

When all primary school pupils in Newham and Durham were offered free school meals, attainment levels rose. Pupils in these areas made between 4 and 8 weeks more progress over a two year period than similar pupils in other areas.

These evaluation reports analyse the impact, delivery and value for money of a two-year pilot that tested two different approaches to extending access to free school meals (FSM).

This interview is about the socio-economic gradient in teenagers' reading skills.

This interview is about the distributional impact of higher education funding reforms in England.