Graduates’ work-life balance ‘should be tracked alongside pay’

A “more complete picture” of good graduate outcomes must include tracking degree holders’ work-life balance, long-term physical and mental health, and relationship to crime, according to the British Academy.

The “dominant” measures of post-university success fail to capture the “non-economic impact” of higher education, the humanities and social sciences body argues in a report, with the public debate overly fixated on whether degrees are worth the thousands of pounds graduates incur in student debt.

Expanding the conversation could involve considering how graduates benefit from better quality work in terms of job satisfaction and security and whether they enjoy better long-term health outcomes.

One of the key suggestions of the report published on 11 November is updating how the Higher Education Statistics Agency (Hesa) produces its graduate outcomes survey.

Hesa is proposing to add questions on work-life balance from the end of this year – but the survey’s additions will be optional in England and Scotland.

The British Academy has suggested that these questions, and others relating to graduates’ experience of social support and cohesion in their post-university life, should be mandated across the UK.

The analysis calls for a better investigation of how participation in the university system might dovetail with well-being and good civic behaviour, identifying scope for higher education data to be “linked with other official datasets to understand longer-term outcomes, such as health or crime”.

“Studies have identified better long-term health outcomes among graduates in the UK, including by reducing the likelihood of health-damaging behaviour such as smoking and drinking alcohol,” the analysis notes.

“Those attending university are more likely to be from higher socioeconomic backgrounds and other characteristics with known links to health outcomes. Nevertheless, it is reasonable to assume that higher education could be playing some role here in influencing long-term health outcomes.”

And graduates’ contributions to public life might also be flying under the radar. The British Academy wants to see more consideration of the “volunteering premium”, the extent to which graduates might provide greater support to their local services, community organisations and cultural institutions.

“In libraries and legal advice centres, for example, graduates may be using specific skills developed at a university,” the report states, going on to cite “robust evidence” that graduates also aid community cohesion.

The government’s community and engagement survey, for instance, found that in 2025-26, 24 per cent of those surveyed with a degree or higher qualification took part in some kind of formal volunteering at least once a month. For non-graduates, that figure was 17 per cent.

Margot Finn, vice-president of policy and research at the British Academy, said: “We are missing much of the value that is created through higher education in current debates. Salaries are important, but we also need a better understanding, and a better way of measuring, the broader value that higher education creates for society, the economy and the individual.”

Connor McKenzie, deputy head of education policy at the academy, told Times Higher Education: “We’re not saying salary and high-skilled employment metrics aren’t important. They are. We just think that’s looking at one part of the picture, and we need to think about things a bit more broadly and a bit more holistically.”

McKenzie said dim public perceptions of degrees’ monetary value were “absolutely” where “a lot of this [research] has come from”. Nevertheless, he continued, the report was not motivated by “blind self-interest”.

“It’s about fairness and getting a fairer picture of what outcomes look like,” he said.

Asked how easy it would be to draw together different datasets and assemble a broader view of graduate outcomes, particularly in terms of cost, McKenzie said it was not quite “low-hanging fruit” but that the information was already largely available.

The report highlights existing resources such as the Longitudinal Educational Outcomes (LEO) database, overseen by the Department for Education, and the Scottish Fair Work framework, which measures job quality according to 44 indicators.

“They don’t require you ripping stuff up or starting again…It’s about using what we have,” McKenzie said.

He added: “Compared to a lot of policy requests, [our proposals] are relatively low cost.”

georgia.luckhurst@timeshighereducation.com