Our Data Analysis and Insights Manager, James Yarde, analyses the outcomes for our programmes alumni using data from the Higher Education Access Tracker (HEAT).
Since 1997, the Sutton Trust’s programmes have helped to support over 50,000 young people from less advantaged backgrounds to access leading universities and careers. Over the years, many Sutton Trust alumni have shared their stories with us – extending from their programme experiences, all the way to what this has meant in terms of their long-term educational and career trajectories.
But, given the large number of young people that the Trust has worked with over the years, this selection of alumni stories just scratches the surface when it comes to overall programmatic impact. At the Sutton Trust, we use a variety of evaluation tools to help ensure that we can get an accurate indication of how impactful our programmes are. Indeed, one such way we can get a better sense of their overarching impact is to look at longer term education and career outcomes data collected through the Higher Education Access Tracker (HEAT). This annual data return allows us to analyse a wide range of metrics over time, including who goes on to university (and, if so, where they go and what they study), as well as degree attainment and graduate destinations.
The latest analysis of student data collected through HEAT – and conducted by one of our external evaluation partners, the Institute for Employment Studies (IES) – considers outcomes across 73k+ student records. Of these, around 32k participated in a Sutton Trust programme, while 41k applied for a programme but did not get a place. This latter group – composed of young people who applied for a programme running from summer 2018 onwards – provides a benchmark that we can use to help quantify programme impact.
