There has been a recent flurry of organisations producing indicators which purport to measure the impact of education (particularly higher education) on social mobility.
The Social Mobility Commission has produced a report on the Labour Market Value of Higher and Further Education Qualifications. The Sutton Trust produced its Universities and Social Mobility Data Explorer. And TASO (Transforming Access and Student Outcomes in Higher Education) produced a review of evidence, The Value of Higher Education.
All three of these make significant use of Longitudinal Education Outcomes (LEO) data – which links HM Revenue and Customs income data to student records to capture median salary at 1, 3 and 5 years after graduation. This article is not about pointing out the various fundamental flaws in LEO data — that’s been done by others. However, I do want to question some of the assumptions behind these measures and to propose a methodology that is more aligned with the mission of promoting social mobility.
To be fair to TASO, their report looks at a whole range of evidence — what it tells us, what it doesn’t tell us and, importantly, where the gaping holes are. This makes it clear that people are using LEO data, not because it provides a conceptually valid measure of social mobility, but because there’s very little else out there that can be used at the moment.
