Queen Mary University of London has been ranked as the country’s top university for social mobility, according to a new report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies in partnership with the Sutton Trust and Department for Education.
The study looked at the proportion of students from low-income backgrounds at each university, and whether those students have moved up to the top of the income ladder by age 30. Using this data, each university is then given a “mobility rate”.
Queen Mary recorded the highest mobility rate at 6.8%. The University has a high intake of students who were eligible for Free School Meals, and a significant proportion of these students went on to be in the top 20% of earners at age 30.
The average mobility rate across all English universities in the study was 1.3%.
The study also looked at which courses at English universities are the best for mobility. Queen Mary features heavily: three of the top four courses are at Queen Mary (Computing, Maths, and Economics respectively).
The report focused on people who attended university during the mid-2000s and reached age 30 in the late 2010s.
Professor Colin Bailey, President and Principal, Queen Mary University of London, said: “We are so proud to see Queen Mary University named as the country’s best university for social mobility in this report. Recruiting students from backgrounds typically under-represented at research intensive universities like ours, and supporting them to succeed, is at the heart of everything we stand for as a University. This work is intrinsic to our mission and ethos of opening the doors of opportunity to everyone who has the potential to succeed, irrespective of their background.
“I am incredibly proud of the commitment and hard work of all our staff, students and supporters who are passionate to part of this great University.”
Stephanie Marshall, Vice-Principal (Education) at Queen Mary University of London said: “We are hugely proud to be ranked as the top university for social mobility and that so many of our students, regardless of their background, go on to succeed in later life. A university education is more than the certificate of graduation – as this report highlights it fosters social justice and mobility and provides a much-needed platform for people from all walks of life to contribute to society.
“90 per cent of our undergraduate students are from state schools, 23 per cent are from households with less than £10,000 annual income, and over half are the first in their family to enter Higher Education. And we are constantly looking at how we can widen access to even more students with the potential to succeed, who have to overcome various barriers for the education they deserve.
“We are so proud of all our students, who fully embrace all that a university education has to offer and engage with all aspects of the Queen Mary educational offer to realise their full potential.”
The report in full is available here.