Surnames and a Theory of Social Mobility - University of Chicago ...

England has less extensive public support for education than Sweden, and so
potentially more room for private investments adding productive human capital.
Education is free in pre-school (3+), elementary school, and secondary school in the
state system. In England from 1962 to 1998 students did not pay tuition fees at
institutions of higher education. Maintenance grants were available to families with
lower incomes. From 1998-2012 students have to pay tuition fees, but are able to
borrow to finance these fees, which recently were raised by many universities to
£9,000 ($15,000) annually. Students can also get grants and loans to cover their
living costs.
A private elementary and secondary school system, paid for individually by
parents, is much more extensive in England than in Sweden, and 7 percent overall of
elementary and secondary students attend such schools, though this rises to 18
percent of students aged 16 and above. Fees for such schools range from £2,500 to
£30,000 ($4,000-$48,000) annually, the highest fees being for boarding schools.
Such private schools on average have much better academic results than state
supported schools. For example, their graduates are three times as likely as state
school graduates to be admitted to Oxford or Cambridge. So in England there is
possibly more room for parents to transform their resources into enhanced human
capital for their children. 14 But even the private sector grants much scholarship aid
for poorer students who pass the qualifying exams for these schools, so the gains
from income will again be limited.
And certainly England post 1962, on this human capital argument, should
display much less status persistence than England before 1870. For before 1870
schooling was entirely a private matter in England, with parents paying for all
schooling themselves or relying on charity schools.
In comparison to Sweden and England, the USA has many more children in
privately financed education at primary, secondary and tertiary levels. At the first
14 Recent evidence suggests that while attending private school will increase the A level
results of a student of a given ability beyond those of the equivalent student at a state school.
This evidence is, however, that fact that students from state school with the same A-level
scores as those from private schools once admitted to university. Thus private students gain
some advantage in admissions, but see this eroded in terms of degree results.