Sheer Class? The Extent and Sources of Variation inthe UK Graduate Earnings Premium

In this paper, we use the individual-level USR data for the wholepopulation of 1993 leavers from the ‘old’ universities of the UK toinvestigate the determinants of graduate occupational earnings. Amongother results, we find that there are significant differences in theoccupational earnings of leavers, according to: university attended,subject studied, degree class awarded, and Social Class of familybackground, ceteris paribus. Our results suggest that there is likely to besignificant variation around the average rate of return to a first degree.[...]