Growing diversity helping to drive ‘swing’ to science degrees

A significant chunk of the “swing to science” among UK degree students has been driven by shifts in the ethnic make-up of A-level candidates, according to a report that warns policymakers to be “more modest” about their ability to drive changes in subject choices.

A report published by the Higher Education Policy Institute on 6 March, authored by University of Cambridge historian Peter Mandler, explores why the proportion of degrees being taken in science subjects has increased from a low of 38 per cent in 2012 to 43 per cent in 2023.

It identifies a number of possible causes, including:

• An increase in the proportion of school-leavers taking A levels in maths, up from 7 per cent in 2005 to 12 per cent today, combined with more gradual growth in the popularity of science A levels
• Former prime minister Gordon Brown pushing English state schools to offer “triple science” GCSEs, not “double science”, with 25 per cent offering this option in 2014, compared with 5 per cent in 2006
• The global financial crisis of 2007 to 2009 and the trebling of the undergraduate tuition fee cap in England in 2012 making students “more sensitive to future income prospects”.

The report argues that compositional effects also played a role, although increased uptake of science A levels by girls only had a modest impact, since the proportion of female science graduates increased by only 1 percentage point during the 2010s.

Instead, ethnic shifts are likely to have played a greater role, with the proportion of South Asian, black and mixed-race A-level students swelling from 15 per cent in 2008 to 25 per cent in 2022. This has disproportionately affected science, technology, engineering and mathematics courses, with the proportion of entrants from these groups leaping from 16 per cent to 32 per cent. Asian students take 28 per cent of chemistry A levels and 22 per cent of biology A levels, for example.

This is increasingly reflected at university level: at a time when 13 per cent of undergraduates are Asian, for example, they represent 44 per cent of pharmacy students, with similar overrepresentation in disciplines such as dentistry (41 per cent), medicine (33 per cent) and computer science (23 per cent).

“Policymakers should be…more modest about their ability to avert or even alter changes in subject choice driven by strong demographic and cultural forces beyond their control, even indirectly,” concludes Mandler, professor of modern cultural history at Cambridge.

The report comes after years of efforts by UK policymakers to steer students towards science degrees, and amid mounting concern about the fate of arts and humanities courses in universities.

“Quite apart from the doubts that might arise about the effects of over-promoting STEM (doubts about labour market demand and value, and about steering students away from subjects where they are happiest and do best), policymakers who do wish to promote STEM would be well advised to acknowledge that at present student demand is doing their work for them,” Mandler writes.

“That might leave more headspace for problems which are going in the wrong direction and are more amenable to policy solutions.”

chris.havergal@timeshighereducation.com