Industry News
Private school pupils 'focused on university'
Posted on 15th February 2008
Pupils who attend an independent school are more likely to aim for a place at a top university than their state-educated counterparts, a new report has found.
A study commissioned by the education charity the Sutton Trust discovered that some young people from low-income families are being deterred from applying for a university place because of concerns about student debt.
It also found many more are only targeting places at local higher education institutions, as they view living in the family home during their degree studies as an effective way of keeping their living expenses down.
However, researchers from Staffordshire University uncovered very different attitudes among the independent school pupils they interviewed for the study.
They view attending a well-established university, regardless of location, and studying a traditional subject as the normal thing to do and revealed teachers had advised them that getting a good degree was vital to their job prospects.
"Independent schools, it would seem, develop an ethos in which going away to university is perceived as being the 'natural' choice," the report said.
An earlier study by the Sutton Trust found a group of 100 schools - 80 of them independent - produce a third of students accepted by Oxbridge and a sixth of students at other leading universities.