Education

As part of this year’s Festival of Social Science, IFS delivered a public economic talk on "The economics of higher education" aimed at final year undergraduates studying economics.

In most of our analysis of education spending, we focus on spending in England to ensure comparability. In this observation, we expand our analysis to show the level and changes to school spending per pupil across the four nations of the UK.

October 5th is the deadline for big companies to report their gender pay gaps. In 2019 – before the pandemic disrupted data collection – women were paid 16% less per hour than men on average. The gap in average annual earnings was even larger, at 37%, since women are much more likely to work part-time.

In this report, we study the link between higher education, geographical mobility and outcomes for individuals and regions.

In this report, we examine how the learning experiences of English school children evolved over the course of the first 12 months of disruption, from the beginning of the first lockdown in March 2020 until the end of the second period of school closures in March 2021.

This briefing note provides an update on school spending trends over time, covering the most recent sets of data, forecasts and policy announcements.

"Please government, stop putting good, professional, public servants in an almost impossible situation by forcing them to choose between two incompatible versions of doing the right thing." Paul Johnson in The Times.

In this note, we analyse how participation in and spending on 16–18 education have evolved over recent years.

At the last election, the Conservative Party manifesto committed to increasing teacher starting salaries in England to £30,000 per year by September 2022. However, to ease pressure on school budgets and the public finances, the government has now announced a freeze on teacher pay levels in England for September 2021, and pushed back starting salaries of £30,000 to September 2023.

'The power of the Treasury needs constant challenge and scrutiny, but in the end, it needs to play its role in challenging and scrutinising the rest of government. It needs to be unpopular.' Paul Johnson in The Times on the Treasury's role in last week's decisions on education spending.

In this observation we look at the arguments to consider when assessing the merits of the large injection of education spending.

Recent IFS work shows that students from disadvantaged backgrounds see some of the largest financial benefits from going on to university. But these students are also less likely to attend university than their better-off peers who get exactly the same grades as them. And, even among students with the same grades attending the same HE programme, those from disadvantaged backgrounds still on average go on to earn less.

This briefing note describes the range and level of COVID-related spending on education in England.