Study shows academies have higher university application success rates than private schools

Private schools are less successful at getting students into university than academies, according to a recent analysis of UCAS data.

The data shows that 87.81% of the 91, 485 academy school-leavers were successful in applying to university, a marginally higher success rate of 87.14% for private school students.

The statistics suggests that those attending academies, grammar schools, and sixth-form colleges have a better chance of enrolling in higher education than those who were privately-educated.

Academies are a relatively fresh educational phenomenon, introduced under New Labour. Since the mass expansion under the coalition, scores of schools have transitioned to academy status, releasing themselves from local authority control. Such schools still receive funding from the state.

The issue of these schools falling outside of the authority of local government has been exposed by a lack of school places, with forcing academies to regulate places not an option.

The UCAS data does not show which universities pupils from different types of schools are applying to. One possible explanation of the findings is that private school pupils are applying for more competitive institutions.

This perceived effectiveness of state-funded institutions is interesting to scrutinise, at a time when the Labour party has discussed the abolition of private schools at its party conference.