The ethnicity-attainment link in Higher Education

Higher Education (HE) statistics in the UK show ethnicity to have a big influence on how well a British student performs at university.

• White students are more likely to achieve a good (2:1 or 1st) degree than a 3^rd
• Black students are 3x less likely to get a good degree than White students
• Asian students are 50% less likely to get a good degree than White students.

A similar story has continued over the last 15 years.  Although most Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) students study at the post-1992 universities, they are outperformed by BME students studying at the Russell Group universities (20 of the top UK HE institutions).

Some factors can increase the odds of BME students getting good degrees such as

• Being older
• Being female
• Studying full-time
• Studying Medicine or Dentistry
• Studying combined degrees.

Differences in exam results achieved on application to university can only account for half of the gap between White and BME students.  However, Chinese medical students who arrive at university with the highest grades often fall behind by the time they graduate.

More research into this problem could show transparency in HE and inspire action for change by firstly, finding the causes of the under-attainment and secondly, creating solutions to reduce the gap amongst British students.

This blog was written after attending the UCL Race Equality Group event, Understanding the under-attainment of students from Black and Minority Ethnic Groups.  At the event, Dr John Richardson (The Open University) presented a lecture about Ethnicity and attainment in higher education whilst Dr Katherine Woolf (UCL Division of Medical Education) discussed Ethnicity and the academic performance of UK medical students and doctors.  A video of the event is available on the UCL Equalities website.

White males under-represented in medicine?

Image by Waldo Jaquith

If you are interested in medical careers, I recommend this opinion piece by Noel Plumridge in Health Service Journal, exploring the changing landscape of gender and ethnic background across the medical profession. Here are just a few of the facts and figures.

The headline grabbing under-representation of white males refers to the figures that they make up:

40 per cent of all school leavers, but only 27 per cent of medical school acceptances in 2007

Though it looks like this is mainly due to a fall in applications from white males.

Women now form the majority of training intake, yet it is interesting to see how the gender balance changes across the specialities:

49% of public health doctors are female
44% of pediatricians are female
29% of anaesthetists are female
8% of surgeons are female

A striking variation which Noel ascribes mainly to women tending to choose specialities which allow part-time, flexible and planned hours, and which feature more patient interaction.

If that gets you wondering why, see Noel’s article!