Education in Britain (source: bbc)

But researchers highlight some other questions muddying the waters.

Students do not enter university unshaped by what went before. 

How much of higher earnings in later life might be linked to coming from high-income parents, rather than anything to do with higher education?

A key finding of the income research was that graduates from wealthy families ended up earning more than than those from poorer families, even if they studied the same course at the same university.

But there is no escaping the growing sense of stratification in the university sector and differences in status.

Belonging to the Russell Group [i.e. elite universities] has become a kind of self-conferred status symbol for its membership.