Nepotism means poorer students will never earn more and it needs to stop

A report which was published earlier this week said students who come from a lower income background go on to earn less than other students from the same course if they have richer parents.

University is supposed to be an institution open to all, that will level the playing field between people from all backgrounds. But all this study shows us is that this really isn’t the case. Despite the fact that students are attending the same universities and studying the same thing, people who come from a higher income background are still going to be better off.

A key reason for this has to be a result of nepotism. People from a family with more money, are likely to know the right people in the right places who can secure them higher paying jobs. This is all very well and good if you are one of these people, but for the students that aren’t this means that there is a much greater chance that they will never manage to earn much more than their parents did. Nepotism is only going to keep the status quo, meaning that there is essentially no hope for anyone who doesn’t know people who can offer them better opportunities.

Now that grants have been cut, students from a lower income background are already in a much worse position when they graduate, having to pay around £9000 more back than their more well off counter parts, so the fact that they will probably earn less on top of this makes me wonder if there is any point in them trying to better themselves financially.

The problem is that university is supposed to be the thing that changes all of this. We are all supposed to be given the same level of higher education, we all pay £9000 a year, and then we are supposed to graduate with the same chances as the people on our course to do well. If this isn’t the case, what is the point of coming to university and racking up some serious debt, if we are in fact not on a level playing field? It seems as though our fates are decided based on our families income, and there is nothing we can really do to change this.