State school pupils are likely to do better at university than independent school pupils with similar A-Level results, research by Cambridge Assessment suggests.

The research is said to add to the debate concerning whether applications from state school pupils to universities should be favoured over independent school pupils.

Dr. Vidal Rodeiro, an author of the research, said that in Russell and non-Russell group universities, “students from independent schools were less likely to achieve either a first class degree” in comparison to students from state schools with “similar prior attainment”.

Reasons cited for such a finding are that private schools students may be less incentivised to work hard and prioritise their social lives, or that they were ‘coached’ at school and therefore struggle with independent work at university.

62.2% of students admitted to Cambridge University in the 2014-15 academic year were from state schools, a minor increase on the previous year. The university spent £4.5m on 4,000 access events during the same period.

The research, featured in the Oxford Review of Education, draws similar conclusions to a study by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) conducted recently.

However, HEFCE had to apologise when it transpired that its key finding was in fact wrong. Their report had said that in 2013-14, 82 per cent of state school leavers who graduated from English universities achieved a first or a 2:1. This was compared with 73 per cent of independent school students achieving the same. 

In actuality, the reverse is true and is said to be the result of a “transposition error”. 

Times Higher Education reports that “the correction will be welcomed by private school head teachers, for whom the HEFCE report had made uncomfortable reading.”

Nonetheless, HEFCE stands by the general thrust of its findings, arguing that once factors such as socioeconomic background are controlled for, state school students still perform better than expected against independent school leavers.

There is, according to them, “an unexplained four percentage points advantage” to state school students.