Russell Group Universities percentage of state, private, foreign students

[Witwatersrand1970]

DS is applying for universities and I was looking for some stats on Russell Group - I managed to compile these 3 graphs:

What demographic is your DS? Are they bothered by these stats?

My state school daughter has applied to LSE - we know there is a snowballs chance in hell, seeing that graph confirms why!

Same here. State school educated DS since the age of 3

He’s already got 2 great offers and is eagerly awaiting his TMUA result. He’s decided since applying that he’s not particularly fussed on doing his undergraduate degree in London, so even if LSE do make him an offer he won’t be accepting it!!

he should, if you can afford it, internationally it is very prestigious and its in the top three in the UK for most subjects, that kind of boost at the start of your DC's career will make an enormous difference.

www.hesa.ac.uk

has a whole boatload of stats. @Witwatersrand1970

Though I’d recommend some of the IfS reports - graduate earnings and impact of degree classification worth a look.

and if you want graphs www.WonkHE.com will save you loads of time.

Have you calculated the % independent just on UK students or all students? I’m not sure which one the universities use but I have a feeling the numbers cited are usually for UK students only. Your LSE numbers look quite extreme- as in 75% of their Uk students were privately educated. It’s possible but seems unlikely. I think what you need to do is say 65% of students are international and then 25% of the remaining 35% were privately educated rather than add up international and private and the rest is state.

Thank you @boys3 - these are really great sites - I have saved them and reading now!@AllJoyAndNoFun yes I'll look at the numbers tomorrow i.e. Durham is a good example as the graph shows approx 1/3 for each demographic I.e.i.e. if Durham has 1/3 independent school students is that 1/3 of the whole student body or 1/3 of the uk cohort ? In other words if the whole student body is a hypothetical 1000 - then the first case would be 333 foreign students 333 independent 333 state, the second case would be 333 foreign 222 independent 444 state - another complication to add into the mix is the makeup of the foreign students - aren't they the equivalent of private school students to afford up to 30k per year?

Foreign students could be studying in UK independent schools or those from overseas international schools. There are countries like Singapore and Norway that pays for the undergraduates, and international companies that pay for overseas students plus they work in companies as part of their contract.

Very interesting. Oxford and Cambridge have made an effort to attract more state-school students (and are often in the news for failing) but no one pays so much attention to Durham and Edinburgh.

I went to QUB, it’s a Russell group university. I got a first. At the time we didn’t know we were at a RG university, because in Belfast we were in the middle of a civil war. I qualified in Modern History and then did a postgraduate CALS to qualify in law. All with an RG university. I failed o level maths….
However I’m currently a financial director of a national company with a salary far north of the U.K. average.

still love history and the legal thing helps with contacts occasionally but in the main, it’s redundant let your teenagers be teenagers. Give them space and let them live. What will be will be.

pretty sure that on anyone’s death bed, no one is going to ask anyone what university they went to.

Yeah the stats around private vs state are quite tricky to interpret. Firstly, as you say, a very high % of foreign students will have been privately educated or been in highly academically selective state schools ( for example in HK the most prestigious schools are the super selective state schools). These are families paying 20k+ a year in fees plus living costs with no finance so they’re not poor. Within the uk some schools which are deemed non selective because they’re not at Year 7 have really high grade requirements for sixth form (7’s in a level subjects and 8 for maths) so effectively become selective. My view is that selective state schools should rank alongside private schools for diversity purposes as they confer the same academic advantages or at least should be monitored separately from genuine “ all comer” sixth forms. However, I appreciate that “selective” is also a sliding scale- the grammar in my south coast town is not comparable to Tiffin Girls for example. Lastly, the % of state school students cited for the Uk and used as a benchmark is usually 7%- this is not the right figure because the % of 6th form students studying privately in the Uk is closer to 18- 20%.

aren't they the equivalent of private school students to afford up to 30k per year?

Yes, that’s been DD’s experience. She’s the only home student in her studio group at Manchester. Everyone else is international and loaded. They don’t quite understand if Dd says she can’t go out for pizza/bowling. Saying that, that is the only issue. She gets on well with them. I just think she wishes she could find some similarly skint students.

The funding of HE relies on international students and the fees they pay. They cross subsidise the cost of home students. So I don’t think you will find a prestigious university without a high number of international students. International students also want to go to top 100 universities (globally). So I am not sure what you are asking with the OP.

Your DS should apply to the universities he wants to go to based on best degree programme and employment outcomes, and where he is likely to meet the tariff. I would be looking at league tables and the detail of these (what are the metrics used and what do they tell you, look at subject performance not only overall) as well as attending the open days, although I guess DS will have already done this part.

I'm not sure how valuable this data is.

About 12% of A-Level entries are from private schools, but the rate of achieving an A or A* grade for pupils at private schools is about double (close to 50%) the rate for those at state schools (close to 25%) so if there were to be a completely neutral process for assigning candidates to universities I would expect any university with high academic standards to have around 20% of its (non international) undergraduate population drawn from independent schools. However, this data doesn't tell us anything about the other factors that will affect these percentages. What ratio of applications from state and private schools did each institution recieve? Particular universities are more or less fashionable among particular cultural enclaves, and if a university's applicant pool has a proportion of independent to private pupils that is very far from that 20% average, they aren't going to be anywhere near 20% in the eventual undergraduate pool no matter what they do.

Also it's not very useful to lump all state pupils together. At some universities that slice of state-educated pupils is going to be almost exclusively from selective schools - not just the selective grammars but also the schools that select on religion, and the state schools that select on wealth by having a catchment area that only the wealthiest 10% can afford tolive in, tend to have a higher proportion of high performing students and looking at stats for which state schools send a lot of pupils to prestigious universities shows a lot of privileged access within the state sector. Meanwhile a lot of private schools offer full-fees bursaries to pupils who got a raft of 9s at gcse from a state school, to enable them to do their A-levels in the private sector, and those pupiks will figure in the 'private' category in these graphs.

Looking at the raw data without some in-depth sociological research to quantify the effects of all these factors isn't going to tell you anything useful.

the comments from @FenceBooksCycleare all correct. We can’t use this data to say if particular universities are biased in their admissions. But it does give us a rough idea of where students choose to apply. Lots of courses are pretty comparable between Glasgow and Edinburgh, but the privately educated kids are choosing to apply to Edinburgh while the state educated kids are choosing Glasgow.

@KittyMacNitty he’s chuffed with the 2 offers that he’s already got from Uk top 10 universities and courses that excite him.

The reality of living in London and how much (little) financial support we would be able to give him are certainly a factor in his thinking, but receiving these other offers is helping him to make decisions. Having said that if (big if!) LSE do make him an offer, I think it would muddy the water!

For LSE 50% of undergrads are international. The number goes up to 70% when post-grads are included

If they are in UK schools they are not subject to "international fees" at university and won't be categorized as an overseas student

Conversely my kids are UK born of UK parents but educated in a different country so now in the UK we are subject to "international fees". It doesn't make my kids "foreign".

@Muchtoomuchtodo That’s cutting your nose off to spite your face! Lse has always had high numbers of international students as does Imperial. How amazing that the rest of the world thinks they are great universities. They need the money don’t they!

• UK Students (State vs. Independent): Of the UK-domiciled students, statistics indicate that 67% come from state-educated backgrounds. This means approximately 33% of UK students come from independent (private) schools.

Contextual Information

• The proportion of UK students from state schools at LSE (67%) is lower than the national average for all UK universities (around 93%). This indicates a higher representation of privately educated students compared to other UK institutions.
• LSE's diverse community is often highlighted as a key aspect of its global perspective.
• The School has an Access and Participation Plan to improve equality of opportunity for underrepresented groups, including those from less advantaged socio-economic backgrounds.

However you have to separate the state between comps and selective state schools. You also need to drill deeper into specific departments. And remember foreign students supplement UK students.

@parietal International students of the highest calibre like London universities and a few others. These stats aren’t new. What it means is that international students don’t apply in such numbers to the less popular ones. So I agree, it’s not bias, it’s selecting the best from all applicants.

For Economics, grad earnings are another interesting comparison. IFS looked at Economics earnings post graduation based on h uni attended. Guess what uni the highest earners went to? Clue - it has Economics in its name. You pay out more as an undergrad to earn a lot more! Good value for money as others recognise.

UK passport holders in EU and outside EU, have a different requirements and payment levels. Not the same as US student without a UK passport payment level over the 3 years. International students need to have 3 years inside UK, so doesn’t apply to those coming over just for A levels, and very few only come just at Year 11. Scottish universities have a different set up so worth checking.
As an overseas student without UK passport, coverage of costs, visa and paying into NHS is overall much higher.
Definitely worth checking the small print, as UK passport holders that have lived in UK at some point in Edinburgh university have a different payment to those that never lived in UK.

What's the issue? My DC went to LSE for his UG in economics. He bad an absolute blast. He has friends who are domestic students and who as are international students. He's meeting his uni friends today, they've come round ours for dinner many times!

It seems a bit premature to turn down LSE simply because it's in London. You can readily afford LSE on the minimum sfe loan if you budget hard enough. I understand turning LSE down for Oxbridge, but LSE offers so so much for those interested in the social sciences. 2 nobel laureates in the faculty!

You take the triple shared room in one of the catered halls (it's only a 31 week contract). You have a couple of grand left over after rent and can work to get extra money. DS shared in year 1 and then commuted year 2&3.

I'm genuinely sorry but what is your point? There's a lot of rambling here.

We have of course investigated our own, personal situation thoroughly in terms of fees and in order not to be illegal in any way about it, we are paying the international fees, as per the university assessment.

I was correcting someone who said there were 70% undergrad from international students.

I was not criticizing or demonizing LSE. If you had bothered to read what I'd written previously about LSE you'd have seen that I was actively promoting it as one of the best universities both in the UK and internationally.

What is it today with people incapable of reading things beyond the end of their noses?