Determinants of degree performance in UK universities: a statistical analysis of the 1993 student cohort

We exploit a unique data-set matching individual-level data for the 1993 cohort of UK university leavers to DfEE school-level data. We analyze the determinants of undergraduate degree performance using an ordered probit regression model, and find that degree performance is influenced positively by A-level score, positively by occupationally-ranked social class background and is significantly worse both for students who had previously attended an Independent school and for male students. We find that the significance of these effects is robust across different subsamples of the population, and we explore the variation in the magnitude of the effects. We also find that very little of the gender performance gap can be explained by gender differences in observed characteristics and that the superior performance of females is reversed only in the case of Oxbridge students.