Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Graduates from state schools are less likely than their private school peers to enter "professional" jobs on leaving university (Macmillan et al., 2015). However, more can be learnt about the advantages accruing from private schooling by considering the pay growth of those who do enter such jobs. This paper considers differences in the salary growth of graduates that secure a high-status job by whether they attended a private secondary school, using data from a recent survey of English graduates. While there is faster pay growth among those who attended a private school, even after controlling for a range of background characteristics, individuals from state schools are just as likely to remain in high-status jobs at this early stage of their careers. Nevertheless, it is evidently not enough simply to ensure fair access to professional jobs and assume that those who enter will go on to achieve similar levels of financial success regardless of background.