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This year’s exams are now over, and students are anxiously awaiting their grades.

Those grades are potentially life-changing: the difference, for example, between AAA and AAB might be the difference between being accepted or not by a particular university.

It is, of course, deeply disappointing not to get the hoped-for grades and to be denied admission to the university of choice. But there is another significant consequence, too, as illustrated below:

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For 105 universities in England, each point shows:

• The average Ucas tariff score of students entering a given university, as reported in the (noting that, at the upper end, many admitted students have four A levels).
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• The median annual earnings of that university’s graduates, five years after graduation, sourced from the .

The cluster around 100 to 120 Ucas points corresponds to median annual earnings of around £25,000 to £35,000; to the right, as Ucas points increase, so do earnings.

As can be seen, a difference of about 100 Ucas points corresponds to an additional annual income of some £27,500, or £275 per point.

Since , the difference between, say, A-level grades B and A, therefore, corresponds to about 8 x £275 = £2,200 in annual earnings.

Grades ‘reliable to one grade either way’

With this in mind, consider this statement given on 2 September 2020, in , by then chief regulator Dame Glenys Stacey:

“It is interesting how much faith we put in examination and the grade that comes out of that. We know from research...that we have faith in them, but they are reliable to one grade either way.”

That statement is important, for it implies that if a candidate’s certificate shows, for example, grade B, it is also possible that the grade could have been a C or an A.

If we consider the above graph, we can see that being awarded a B when the grade truly merited was an A does not just have an immediate emotional impact but also far-reaching financial consequences, too.

For example, if the difference between an A and a B corresponds to a difference in earnings, five years after graduation, of about £2,200, then over a 40-year working life, that implies a financial penalty of some £88,000, assuming no inflation and no salary increments.

And if a certificate shows, say, BBB for a candidate truly meriting AAA, with all three grades being victims of “reliable to one grade either way”, the corresponding loss in lifetime earnings rises to over a quarter of a million.

This is another example of why we should not accept a situation where grades are “reliable to one grade either way” but instead insist on grades that are reliable, full stop.

Or, if that can’t be delivered, the truth about the unreliability of the grades should be declared, so users do not inadvertently take unsafe decisions

Bear in mind, too, that under , Ofqual has a duty “to secure that regulated qualifications give a reliable indication of knowledge, skills and understanding”.

The law does not specify the degree of reliability required, though, raising the question: are grades reliable to “one grade either way” reliable enough?

That, perhaps, is the £250,000 question we should be asking.

Dennis Sherwood is the author of

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