IFS finds medicine graduates earn up to £400,000 more but a quarter of all graduates worse off over lifetime

Institute for Fiscal Studies research shows medicine graduates can earn up to £400,000 more over their lifetime than non-graduates. Economics graduates also earn more than non-graduates, while creative arts, philosophy and languages degrees produce little to negative financial return compared with similar individuals who did not attend university.

The average graduate earns around £100,000 more over a lifetime than non-graduates after taxes and student-loan repayments, the analysis found.

A quarter of graduates can expect to be financially worse off over their lifetime as a result of attending university. One in ten male graduates can expect to be more than £90,000 worse off. Among men with low prior attainment, around four in ten graduate men can expect lower lifetime earnings than if they had not gone to university.

Students who continued education after age 16 but had relatively low GCSE grades can still expect £53,000 higher lifetime take-home pay on average than similar-grade peers who skipped university. The data cover lifetime financial returns to full-time undergraduate degrees started before age 21 at UK universities.

They draw from England-domiciled students born in the mid-1980s who took GCSE exams in 2002.

More recent graduate-outcomes data cover the 2022-2023 tax year. The Department for Education said it will cap numbers on courses with the poorest returns. It will begin a consultation in autumn on introducing minimum English-language requirements for prospective undergraduates to access student finance.