Northumbria VC Andrew Wathey cites Sutton Trust research on postgraduate earnings in an opinion piece for Times Higher Education.

The government’s new postgraduate loan scheme is to be welcomed. It fills gaps left by the 2010 reform of student funding and in successive governments’ higher skills strategies. It marks an important step in widening access to higher level programmes and employment opportunities.  It brings potential benefits for the employer, for the state, and for the individual.

Employers need a larger workforce qualified to master’s level, and are willing to reflect this in salaries. Work by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Sutton Trust on the earnings premium (used in the Autumn Statement) shows that master’s graduates earn on average £200,000 more than first-degree graduates during their working lives, and that this premium is increasing……

Read the full piece here