Higher education (HE) participation has expanded dramatically in England over the last half century; however, access to HE amongst particular groups of students remains a major policy concern. This report makes use of newly linked administrative data to better understand the determinants of...

The UK is currently experiencing a period of considerable fiscal austerity. This has had profound implications for virtually all areas of public spending, including spending on higher education. In this report, we use our own model of graduate earnings and repayments to produce an independent...

This report considers the extent to which differences in parental characteristics explain gaps in cognitive and socio-emotional development between children at older ages. It documents and explores the differences between children born to cohabiting and married couples for a range of other...

The current decade is one of significant fiscal austerity for government spending. The coalition government that came to power in 2010 has embarked on a path of fiscal consolidation that is now expected to last at least seven years (up to 2017-18), with tax increases and spending cuts that are...

This report updates and extends the previous IFS work to examine the consequences of these changes for graduates. In particular, we use a new model of graduate earnings and repayments and explore in more detail the pattern and size of loan repayments made, including by different types of graduates.

Official data on the distribution of household incomes in the UK are available only with a significant lag: the latest statistics are for 2013-14. In this report, we use modelling techniques to provide a more up-to-date picture and to assess how things are likely to evolve in the coming years....

The local government finance system in England is undergoing genuinely revolutionary change. A highly-centralised system of funding, with central government grants allocated on the basis of councils' relative spending need, is set to be replaced by a system where councils as a group are...

The government has committed to freezing school spending per pupil in cash terms in England up to 2019-20. It has also committed to introducing a national funding formula for schools in England from 2017 onwards. In this report, we provide historical context for these changes by showing how...

The focus of this report is the distribution of household income in the UK. We assess the changes to average incomes, income inequality and poverty that occurred in the latest year of data (2014-15), and put these in historical context using comparable data spanning the last 50 years. The...