§ Mr. RendelTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what assessment he has made of the total taxation paid over the average working life of(a) graduates and (b) non-graduates. [82774]
§ Margaret Hodge[holding answer reply 25 November 2002]: Using earnings data from the Labour Force Survey over the four quarters autumn 2000 to summer 2001, we estimate that graduates whose highest qualification is a first degree could pay on average around £200,000 in income tax over a working life. This figure relates to Great Britain. The equivalent figure for graduates and non-graduates, collectively, is around £120,000. Lifetime income taxation for only non-graduates would be significantly lower than this figure.
§ Mr. RendelTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what assessment he has made of the average income of graduates over their working lives726W compared to the average income this same group would have earned had they not obtained a higher education qualification. [82776]
§ Margaret Hodge[holding answer reply 25 November 2002]: The information requested is not available.
Numerous academic studies have attempted to estimate the average percentage increase in hourly or weekly earnings attributable to having various higher education qualifications. These studies control for a range of factors that affect earnings, other than having a HE qualification— such as age, gender, prior educational attainment—although they do vary in the extent to which other influential factors are taken into account. The studies do not tell us exactly what a particular graduate would have earned had they not have obtained a higher education qualification. We can only observe one reality for any individual— i.e. their actual earnings given that they did get a HE qualification. However, they do provide the closest estimates that we can get of the earnings they could have had.
There is, unsurprisingly, some variation in the results of these studies, indicating that the increase in earnings from having a first degree compared to two or more A-levels is in the range of around 20–30 per cent.