Econometric Analysis of the Demand for Higher Education

(2003) - Maria Evangelou, Kathy Sylva, Great Britain, Department for Education and Skills

Journal: Department for Education and Skills Research Series
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Tags:: #paper #SocialHistory #Attainment #Education
Cite Key:: [@Evangelou2003]

Abstract

In the U.K. there has been a massive expansion in student numbers in higher education. An increasing proportion of young people go to university. It is established that educational attainment is central to entry to higher education. The overall focus of this research is to identify which factors, net of educational attainment, influence young people’s entry to higher education.

Notes

“A’Level attainment is central to the transition to degree level higher education.” (Evangelou et al., 2003, p. 4)

“Educational attainment in Year 11 is also important. Young people with more GCSE passes are more likely to go on to degree level higher education” (Evangelou et al., 2003, p. 5)

“Housing tenure is significant. The YCS does not include a direct measure of family income or family wealth. Housing tenure can be considered as a proxy measure of family wealth. Young people whose parents do not own their own homes are less likely to enter higher education, all other things being equal.” (Evangelou et al., 2003, p. 5)

“Regional effects are also significant.” (Evangelou et al., 2003, p. 5)

“Parental education is also significant. Young people with graduate parents are more likely to enter degree level higher education.” (Evangelou et al., 2003, p. 5)

“Overall the literature on access to higher education sends the message that there is social inequality. Breen and Goldthorpe (1997) argue that the wealth of sociological evidence seems to suggest that a series of empirical generalisations can readily be made and constitute explananda. Young people of less advantaged social backgrounds have not increased their levels of participation in more ambitious educational options thus closing the gap with their more advantaged counterparts” (Evangelou et al., 2003, p. 11)

“Entry to degree level higher education is one transition, or choice, that is open to young peopl” (Evangelou et al., 2003, p. 11)

“Much contemporary research has been bound up with what is colloquially termed a” (Evangelou et al., 2003, p. 11)

“12 ‘the school to work transition’ (see Hollands 1990; MacDonald, Banks and Hollands 1993; Irwin 1995; Gayle 1998). The claim that ‘school to work’ transitions have been radically restructured, in Britain at least, in the late part of the twentieth century is really not in dispute. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s numerous writers have described how young people, differentiated by social class, gender and ethnicity, follow different paths during the teenage years after they leave school (MacDonald 1999).” (Evangelou et al., 2003, p. 12)

“Accounts within the sociology of youth have stressed how individual young people’s pathways have been transformed over the past twenty years as a result of the collapse in the youth labour market (Maguire and Maguire 1997)” (Evangelou et al., 2003, p. 12)

“The most notable of these policy interventions was the introduction of widespread youth training provisions and the expansion of further education (Roberts 1995). Simultaneously, a number of reforms to the welfare system have changed young people’s entitlement to state benefits (Dean 1997)” (Evangelou et al., 2003, p. 12)

“The central message of the contemporary youth transitions literature is that there are complex social processes underpinning young people’s transitions out of education. The general message that is put forward is that changes in the economy as well as social and economic policy during the 1980s have protracted the process of young people’s move out of education. As Craine (1997) pointed out, sociologists have deployed a series of adjectives such as ‘long’, ‘broken’, ‘fractured’ and ‘uneasy’, in order to capture the changes, which have occurred in youth transitions” (Evangelou et al., 2003, p. 12)

“In Britain the school leaving age was raised to 16 in the early 1970s. Over the last three decades it has become increasingly common for young people to remain in education after the compulsory period.” (Evangelou et al., 2003, p. 13)

“Banks et al. (1992) stated that there are now wide variations in the rates of young people of various social backgrounds making an early transition out of education.” (Evangelou et al., 2003, p. 13)

“Further, they argued that the choices that young people make are not made in isolation; the young person is subject to ‘structural’ influences stemming from the social and cultural groups to which he or she belongs. Therefore social class, gender and ethnicity will play a part in shaping aspirations.” (Evangelou et al., 2003, p. 13)

“In Gayle, Berridge and Davies (2000), we extend the methodology and exploit the longitudinal aspects of the YCS data. We report that, net of individual attainment, a series of individual and family related factors influence young people’s participation in post-compulsory education and their entry into higher education.” (Evangelou et al., 2003, p. 14)

“Furlong and Cartmel (1997) use a transportation metaphor to describe youth transitions. Following 6 For a fuller explanation see Gayle, Berridge and Davies (2002) p.14-15” (Evangelou et al., 2003, p. 15)

“16 on from this, we argue that despite the changes noted above, the A’Level Route is still the main highway for young people to enter higher education.” (Evangelou et al., 2003, p. 16)

“Therefore it is imperative that more comprehensive analyses, which include a range of explanatory variables are undertaken” (Evangelou et al., 2003, p. 19)

“Throughout this report we have adopted the standard 5% level of significance (i.e. p ≤ .05)” (Evangelou et al., 2003, p. 20)

“Logistic regression models are attractive because they are appropriate when dealing with binary outcomes (e.g. entry to degree level higher education; yes or no). A further attraction of these models is that we can identify significant explanatory variables and highlight their importance.” (Evangelou et al., 2003, p. 20)

“Odds ratios allow the reader to compare groups with a base category. For example in a model of entry to degree level higher education, if the odds ratio is greater than 1 for a particular group then they have increased odds of entering degree level higher education compared with those in the base category. If, by contrast, the odds ratio is less than 1 for a particular group then they hav” (Evangelou et al., 2003, p. 20)

“21 decreased odds of entering degree level higher education compared with those in the base category.” (Evangelou et al., 2003, p. 21)

“Table 1 Entry To Degree Level Higher Education – Significant Factors Net Of” (Evangelou et al., 2003, p. 38)

“Halsey (1993) argued that class, gender and ethnicity are now the three giants in the path of aspirations toward equality of access within education. One of these giants, namely gender, has been successfully tackled. A slightly higher proportion of young women than men in YCS Cohort 9 entered higher education. This is important because traditionally female participation has been lower than male participation.” (Evangelou et al., 2003, p. 75)

“Part of the difference in participation by young people from different social class backgrounds can be understood in terms of their educational attainment” (Evangelou et al., 2003, p. 76)