Education: Policy, Research, Practice, Thoughts.

For anyone working in Higher Education, this week was all about LEO. The Longitudinal Educational Outcomes data is a dataset published by the Government which shows graduate earnings 5-years post-graduation by university and subject. This is done by linking data from DfE, DWP and HMRC, so we can piece together a student’s university degree and institution with their future employment and tax return data. While there are some gaps in this analysis, overall it’s not too shabby. Some have posited that this data will transform higher education, allowing prospective students to make more informed decisions about where to study based by identifying the course that will return most for their investments. Others think it should be largely disregarded – the data is historical rather than predictive of future earnings, and other things matter beyond money.  Either way, now that the data is out, it will be hard for prospective students – and their parents - to ignore it. And some of the f...