At some point, children leave nursery and start their schooling. This happens at the age of four. And looking at the cost of day-care centres, it has to be said that the serious side of life cannot begin soon enough. Attending a normal school is not in itself associated with further costs. So the pressure on the family wallet eases, doesn’t it?
The answer is a resounding yes... Or no, depending on how much parents want to increase their children's career opportunities. These increase dramatically if they send their offspring to a "better" school, especially if it is a private school.
To understand why certain schools increase their children's career chances, it is best to take a look at the costs of university and the associated career prospects first.
At some point, children leave nursery and start their schooling. This happens at the age of four. And looking at the cost of day-care centres, it has to be said that the serious side of life cannot begin soon enough. Attending a normal school is not in itself associated with further costs. So the pressure on the family wallet eases, doesn’t it?
The answer is a resounding yes... Or no, depending on how much parents want to increase their children's career opportunities. These increase dramatically if they send their offspring to a "better" school, especially if it is a private school.
To understand why certain schools increase their children's career chances, it is best to take a look at the costs of university and the associated career prospects first.
First of all, if you want to study at universities in the UK, you have to pay tuition fees. For a Bachelor's degree, up to £9,250 per year (as of 2022). For a Master's, fees vary greatly from university to university, but a few thousand pounds per year are the minimum. Either parents start saving for their children's university costs after nursery, or the children finance their studies (in part) themselves, for example through work, scholarships or loans... Which would mean that they start their working lives with a mountain of debt and would have even greater problems financing their own children or their property.
But beware! Unlike in Germany, there are considerable differences in quality between British universities. A good indicator concerning quality is if the university in question is a member of the Russell Group. This is an interest group of universities that usually collect most of the research funds. It currently consists of 24 universities.
Research funding is in general a good indicator of the quality of a university. The better the scientists, the more money they receive. These funds not only finance laboratories, but almost the entire academic staff. At the same time, better scientific conditions attract better young researchers. And they are usually involved in teaching. Students are thus supervised by better, and more, staff.
The 24 universities in the Russell Group make up only 15 per cent of the British Higher Education landscape, but receive 76 per cent of all research funding. There are seven students for every academic staff member. For the rest of the universities, the ratio is 1 to 14. The environment seems to be paying off: Russell Group University graduates earn on average 10 per cent more over the course of their career than graduates from other universities.
However, the Russell Group as an indicator only provides a rough orientation. It lacks a more precise grading of its members; due to their size smaller ‘top’ universities like St. Andrews are not part of the Group, and how good the rest of the UK's more than 100 universities are is not known either.
But fortunately, the British, or rather the entire Anglo-Saxon world, love comparisons. Whether schools, universities or old people's homes, there is hardly an institution that is not evaluated. Preferably in the form of a ranking. By its own admission, the most influential university rankings come from The Times or Times Higher Education, but there are many more.
At the national level, the list is called the Good University Guide. As a rule, Oxford and Cambridge are at the top. But London universities (Imperial College, King’s College and University College London) or Durham University are tough competitors.
Top universities get so many applications that only pupils with the best grades have a chance of being accepted. The admission requirements of the various universities can be found at www.ucas.com. For example, those wishing to study maths at Oxford, Cambridge or the outstanding London universities usually need an A* in Mathematics, an A* in Further Mathematics and an A in a third subject [1], preferably another science. Finally, some universities may insist on an additional entrance exam.
At lower ranked universities admission requirements are not nearly as strict. If one wants to study mathematics at Coventry University, one typically needs final grades in the ABB-BBB range, and one of the subjects may have to be mathematics (The requirements vary from year to year, more than for universities at the top of the list.)
At the lower end of the table, grades in the CCE range are often sufficient, and an A-level in mathematics is not required either.
Pupils with the best final grades end up at the best universities, those with poorer results have to find their fortune at lesser universities. At uni, excellent school graduates benefit from excellent conditions, while the less gifted also have less support. Thus, already the name of universities has become a mark of quality.
When it comes to finding a job, the alma mater seems to play a role in at least some subjects, such as mine. After I was looking for a job for some time, I was able to notice a pattern. Generally, the chances of getting a response were good, but with the most interesting jobs I was guaranteed not to be invited for an interview.
"Interesting" in this case means the jobs were most similar to my previous employment. And I wasn't bad at my old job, at least given all the metrics my field of work can provide. I had worked in some of the world's leading research groups, published in the most prestigious journals, received numerous citations, and my world-renowned supervisors were ready to provide good references for me.
Why was I still not invited for interviews? The only unifying element was all job descriptions required a degree from a world class university, i.e. a top ranked university, and I did not have that.
I think I was a "victim" of the ranking system, or rather of the different university cultures in Germany and the Anglo-Saxon world.
I do love rankings. They can provide a quick overview, for example, of the quality of different providers. Moreover, the evaluation is usually expressed in a numerical value. And as a physicist, I love numbers. As a scientist, however, I also know how difficult it is to measure certain parameters. In order to measure an effect as directly as possible and undistorted by external influences, I often had to prepare experiments for weeks or even months.
How can the quality of a university-grade education programme be assessed? With standardised tests? They are mainly suitable for testing pure knowledge, less for checking understanding or the ability to apply what has been learned. Such tests do not exist internationally and at this level for good reason. Therefore, the publishers of the rankings fall back on indicators from which they believe they can draw conclusions.
In the Good University Guide, universities are evaluated according to three main categories, whose scores each contribute 30 per cent to the overall result: Teaching, Research and Number of citations of academic articles. Additional factors are the income from the industrial sector (2.5 percent), as well as the internationality of the university (7.5 percent).
The area of research is evaluated, among other things, by the amount of funds available and the scientific productivity, i.e., the number of published articles. In teaching, the ratio of staff to students plays a role. In the area of internationality, the proportion of foreign students and staff is taken into account. The more the better, because why else would they come to a particular university?
All these categories and assessments make sense. But now put yourself in the role of the president of a university and think about how your university can move up in the rankings. To attract more international students and staff, you don't necessarily have to improve research and teaching. Instead, a little networking is enough. For example, by participating in exchange programmes with foreign universities. Visiting students boost the internationality of both institutions.
In teaching, the staff/student ratio could be improved through student assistants. In the area of research, funds cannot be easily increased, but with the number of publications, a greater output can be achieved with a few tricks.
Instead of writing a long paper analysing a complex of topics as a whole, authors publish several short papers highlighting only partial aspects. It goes without saying that the short papers cite each other. This also boosts the number of their citations.
And if a department permanently pulls down the university's ranking, the institution in question could be closed. A positive side effect: the university's profile improves.
You see, although some measures make sense, such as the exchange programmes for students, they increasingly dilute the significance of the indicators.
There are now many international rankings, but the most important ones still come from the Anglo-Saxon world. In the 2020 edition of Times Higher Education, Oxford is ranked first and Cambridge third. The top 30 universities include 19 American universities, six from the UK and five from other countries. The first German university, LMU Munich, made it to 32nd place. My alma mater ranks 149th.
The rankings of the German universities may not sound world class, but let's be honest, if our universities and thus their graduates were really that bad in comparison, why does Germany still have competitive industries, and the UK does not? In any case, it's not because of lower incomes for employees. German universities have just not completely optimised their processes for the best possible placement in foreign rankings.
As much as my job search problems annoyed me, I understand British employers that demand degrees from better universities. In the UK, the ranking does matter. There are significant differences in quality between universities… And, based on my experiences, the average quality of education doesn't seem to be particularly high… partly as a result of the rankings.
In the UK, an academic service industry has emerged, with an interdependence between students and universities. It is still easy to understand why students seek degrees at poorly ranked universities. Having a degree still promises a more lucrative career than only completing a school education. And many UK universities rely on students for funding: the more the better.
In general, British universities are financed by three sources: basic funding by the state, tuition fees and the research funds already mentioned. The latter are hardly available to universities outside the Russell Group. And the state has sharply reduced its grants in the aftermath of the financial crisis. From around £8 billion in 2010/2011, it went down to just under £4 billion in 2018/2019. To compensate for the funding gap, universities were allowed to raise their tuition fees, from a maximum of £3,000 per year for an undergraduate course to the aforementioned £9,250.
For all that money, students should expect something. The chance of failure (dropping out) should be low, the duration of studies short. In general, customer satisfaction should be kept high.
All these points are often used to evaluate teaching. And there are university rankings that focus only on the teaching offered, and not on “extras” like research. In the corresponding ranking from the Guardian, as of 2019, the usual suspects do end up in the top positions. However, after the top 10, there are significant shifts from the Times ranking. For example, the aforementioned Coventry University jumps from 44th (Times) to 13th (Guardian) when based upon teaching quality.
If a university wants to improve its profile in teaching, it tries to optimise these factors. And it is tempting to boost them a little, for example by turning a blind eye to poor test results or lowering the level of the tests.
You don't think this happens? One of our friends teaches Mathematics at one of the top 25 universities in the Guardian's 2019 rankings (after which there were many shifts due to the pandemic). If he tells us about his day-to-day work; he never stops ranting.
In introductory courses, he often has over 200 students sitting opposite him, with a maximum of five able to follow the material. They are simply not the best. Most of them need intensive personal supervision, but there are not enough staff to cope with the large numbers.
Nevertheless, many will get a degree. One student graduated with a Maths bachelor's degree even though he had problems with multiplication tables. Our friend wanted to fail him in an exam but got pressure to let him pass by departmental heads. After all, the customers paid, the university needs the money and, of course, a good spot in the rankings should not be jeopardised.
Our friend is utterly frustrated. Why does he invest hours and hours in preparing lectures when no one can understand what he is saying? Why does he have to cheat students through exams contrary to his convictions? Also, he doesn't find time for his research, due to the sheer number of students he has to deal with.
And his job is not secure, despite his tenured position. He fears a procedure that has already been used in other universities to save money: All employees of a department are dismissed and then offered the opportunity to reapply. But they must justify why they are an indispensable part of the staff…
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[1] Usually, British students take only three subjects in their final year.