Private school pupils get better degrees, even if they're less clever Researchers at the Institute of Education and the University of Manchester analysed the education histories of thousands of people in England and Wales whose lives are being followed by the 1970 British Cohort Study. When A-level results were not taken into account, private school pupils were overall six times more likely to obtain a degree from an elite university as comprehensive school pupils were. They were also more than twice as likely to do so as grammar school pupils were. Some 31% of private school pupils in the 1970 birth cohort obtained a degree from an elite university - namely a Russell Group institution or the University of Bath or St Andrews - compared to 13% from grammar schools and five per cent from comprehensives. However, the researchers concluded that the apparent success of grammar schools could be attributed to pupils" social backgrounds and other factors such as their attainment at age 11. "Private schooling is powerfully linked to degree chances," the report said. Attending a private school is powerfully predictive of gaining a university degree, and especially a degree from an elite institution. Among the reasons for the stark discrepancy between the university achievements of private and state pupils were likely to be the differences between parents who send their child to a private school and those who do not, the report said. These included parents" "level of motivation and ambition regarding education, as well as differences in political outlook linked to attitudes towards "getting on" in life." The level of aspiration, both of the parents and the schools, and links between elite universities such as Oxford and Cambridge and certain top private schools could also help explain the findings, the authors suggested. Having a parent with a degree significantly increased the chances of graduating from an elite university, the study found. A person born in 1970 who had at least one graduate parent was more than twice as likely to obtain a degree from a Russell Group university as a pupil with the same A-level results but whose parents had no qualifications. Fifty-two per cent of privately-educated pupils had at least one graduate parent, compared to 31% from grammar schools and 14% from comprehensives. Prof Sullivan said: "The main reason why different schools get different results is because of the different kinds of kids who go to those schools." The study showed that for the generation born in 1970, being bright was not necessarily enough to get a degree from a top university, she said. "The advantages of a private education applied even when we took exam results into account," she added. It is, of course, sometimes argued that elite universities are dominated by the privately educated because there is a deep pool of talent in independent schools and not enough talent in state schools, but this view was not supported by our analysis.