Dr John Green Guest Blogs - Insider’s Guide to Changes in British Universities - 3 - Graduate Employability and the Future for University Admissions

As student numbers increase so will the number of graduates competing for employment. This year the government has made an additional 10,000 university places available, meaning record numbers of graduates as those students complete their studies. As the cost of study increases students and parents are increasingly focused on the likely return on that investment. Does a good degree from a good university still represent value for money? And how will university and school assessment methods be forced to evolve to meet the demands of consumer?

There is an accepted premise that employers only look at students with an upper second degree or above, although it is worth noting that this is largely unproven and constantly shifting in today’s graduate market. However, the premise itself is misleading - can anyone justify using the same criterion to filter students from a top university together with those from a university with much lower entrance requirements? It is clear that a measure of the value-add which universities are achieving should be taken into account by employers – but is it?. The concept of a value add is well known in school measurements but has never developed across the HE sector: instead prejudices - negative and positive - come into play.

That apart, do students choose their course and university with an understanding of the outcomes of that course? Usually not – and yet there are huge differences between universities and even between courses even at the same university. At Oxford and Cambridge in subjects such as History and Law, over 95% of students gain a 2/1 or better degree whilst in science subjects such as engineering only about 65% achieve the same level of distinction. And a higher percentage of students achieve a 1st or 2/1 at Oxford and Cambridge than at any other UK university.

The net result is that if differential fees are introduced and as the graduate market continues it’s current trend towards saturation then students will naturally wish to evaluate the cost benefit of universities and the courses they offer. They will need information to achieve that, where information currently either is not collected, is held confidentially or is not available in one coherent place.

There is an underlying assumption that the current admissions assessment regime needs changing – and that assumption has been accepted for many years. And so we tinker with the system, introduce modular exams, retakes, AS, A*. We set up reviews (most recently the Sykes review). And on every occasion, individual bodies lobby. Most recently proposals by the coalition to scrap the modular A-level system in order to 'revive the art of deep thought' were held back by claims that to do so would seriously damage the uptake of maths at A level. Individual universities use their power to criticise what is planned (Cambridge, for example, criticised the aforementioned proposed changes to A-levels) but do not play a participative role in an integrated debate. We have a diverging exam system with many schools now starting to take IGCSE rather than GCSE and IB instead of A levels – thus introducing complexities not necessarily understood by the university admissions system.

And who misses out in this constantly changing scenario? The student and, critically, the uninformed student.