City named in top three universities in the country for social mobility

The report, published by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) in partnership with the Sutton Trust and Department for Education, ranked City as the third best university in the UK for boosting social mobility.

The analysis compares how many pupils from low-income backgrounds or who were on free school meals in the mid-2000s have made it into the top 20 per cent of earners by age 30.

Using this data, each university was then awarded a ‘mobility rate.’ City scored third nationally in this metric with a 5.3 per cent mobility rate. This means that, by age 30, 5.3 in every 100 City graduates surveyed in the report were in the top 20 per cent of earners.

City’s score bettered the benchmark rate of 4.4 per cent and the national average which was 1.3 per cent.

The highest performing courses at City for social mobility included: Nursing, Computing, Economics and Law.

London-based universities also dominated the top 20 places in the report.

City graduates are extremely talented, hardworking and determined and I’m proud that the IFS has ranked us as the third best university in the country for social mobility, showing we are making a significant impact to both individuals and society.

Our students and graduates are fantastically employable and I’m looking forward to building on our Employability Development Plan which embeds career focused education and the acquisition of professional work experience, and finding more ways to collaborate with our brilliant academics, those managing student experience and our expert professionals with labour market insight to support City students and their pursuit of engaging and enriching working lives.

For more information see the full IFS report: Which university degrees are best for intergenerational mobility?