Ethnicity and degree attainment

In this paper, we investigate the low degree attainment of ethnic minority students in higher education in England. Using a partial proportional odds model and data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency for qualifiers who started their course of study in 2002/03, we find that even after controlling for the majority of factors which we would expect to have an impact on attainment, being from a minority ethnic community is still statistically significant in explaining final attainment, although the gap has been significantly reduced.