Getting to grips with what graduates do next

THIS WEEK I have culled some interesting facts and figures from two Higher Education Authority (HEA) publications, both available on the HEA website hea.ie – 08/09 Higher Education Key Facts and Figures and What Do Graduates Do? – The Class of 2008.

They offer interesting insights into differences between the university and the institute of technology (IT) sectors, student gender balance at third level, and starting salaries for graduates in first jobs in various disciplines.

Undergraduate, Postgraduate and Socioeconomic Student Profiles in University and IT Sectors

The Institute of Technology (IT) sector caters for a significant fraction of third-level undergraduates enrolled in the State, but for only a small fraction of total postgraduates, reflecting the much greater emphasis on research in the university sector: 73,098 full-time undergraduates and 18,128 full-time postgraduates were enrolled in the university sector in 2008/09. Some 51,892 full-time undergraduates and 2,572 postgraduates were enrolled in the IT sector in 2008/09.

Student intake is spread broadly across all socioeconomic groups in both university and IT sectors but is comparatively biased towards the better-off groups in the university intake.

The socio-economic profiles of 2008/09 third-level entrants were as follows (the first figure in brackets is the percentage of total entrants to the university sector and the second is to the IT sector):

Employer and manager

(20.9 per cent , 17.9 per cent),

Higher professional

(12.5 per cent, 5.1 per cent)

Lower professional

(11.4 per cent, 6.8 per cent),

Non-manual

(9.7 per cent, 9.2 per cent)

Skilled manual

(10.7 per cent, 15.8 per cent)

Semi-skilled

(5.9 per cent, 7.4 per cent),

Unskilled

(2.8 per cent, 5.7 per cent),

Own account

(7.0 per cent, 7.8 per cent),

Farmers

(8.7 per cent, 9.0 per cent),

Agricultural workers

(0.4 per cent, 0.7 per cent),

Other

(10.1 per cent, 14.6 per cent).

Student Gender Balance

Of 21,728 entrants to the university sector in 2008/09, 9,083 were male (41.8 per cent). Why do we never hear any public comment on this? If this number represented female entrants, the issue would regularly figure in the media. The situation is reversed in the IT sector, where 56.8 per cent of intake is male – of 17,600 entrants to the IT sector in 2008-2009, 9,707 were male.

Gender balance in the 2008-2009 university sector intake to science is good (54 per cent male). But the balance remains largely skewed towards males (78 per cent) in engineering, manufacturing and construction.

This gender imbalance in intake to engineering is frequently discussed and the organisation Women Into Science and Engineering specifically addresses this issue. On the other hand, male 2008/09 intake into nursing was 7.3 per cent, into education 19 per cent, into dentistry 24 per cent, and into pharmacy 33 per cent.

I have never heard of an organisation called Men into Nursing or Men into Education.

2009 Employment Statistics and Starting Salaries for the Graduating Class of 2008

Of the 2008 honours science graduates, 42 per cent were working in 2009 and 43 per cent were pursuing higher degrees. Nine per cent were “seeking work” and 6 per cent were “unavailable” for work. Of the engineering graduating class of 2008, 16.3 per cent were still looking for work in 2009.

Starting salary information for the class of 2008 is collated in the accompanying table. The downturn in the economy seems to be starting to bite. The most common starting salary for those 2008 graduates who got jobs in Ireland was in the range €17,000-€25,000. This compared to €21,000-€25,000 a year earlier, €4,000 down at the lower end of this scale.

A total of 8.7 per cent of 2008 science graduates were earning less than €13,000 a year after graduation. But, comparatively speaking, as shown in the table, science graduates and engineering graduates were better paid than commerce and business studies graduates, and significantly better than arts/humanities/social science graduates. As ever, graduates in medicine/dentistry/paramedical were best paid.

William Reville is UCC’s associate professor of biochemistry and public awareness of science officer