What university degrees don't buy

A pioneering study published in Studies in Higher Education provides the first comprehensive examination of multidimensional job quality premiums for university graduates across European labour markets, challenging long-held assumptions about the returns to higher education.

Drawing on data from 26 European countries collected between 2005 and 2015, IER’s Sangwoo Lee and Cesar Burga Idrogo (University College London) examined six non-monetary job quality dimensions beyond conventional earnings measures. Their analysis reveals that graduate advantages are highly selective rather than universally distributed across all aspects of work.

The research found that university graduates enjoy substantial premiums in Skills and Discretion (5.99 points on a 100-point scale), representing significantly greater autonomy, task complexity, and skill utilization.

Moderate advantages also appear in Physical Environment (3.64 points) and Prospects (2.64 points), indicating better working conditions and career opportunities.

However—and this is the study's most striking finding—graduates experience no significant advantages in Social Environment, Work Intensity, or Working Time Quality.

"This means that while graduates access more autonomous and cognitively demanding roles, they face similar workplace social dynamics, work pressures, and temporal demands as non-graduates," explains Lee.

The study also reveals that educational expansion matters. In countries with higher tertiary attainment rates, graduate premiums diminish significantly in Skills and Discretion and Physical Environment, though other dimensions remain stable.

This pattern indicates that mass expansion reshapes, rather than reduces, the value of university credentials.

"This is the first systematic study to move beyond earnings and employment rates to examine how university education translates into multiple dimensions of job quality," notes Lee. "As higher ehttps://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/ier/people/sleeducation continues to expand globally, understanding these multidimensional returns becomes crucial for students, families, and policymakers."

The findings carry important implications for how we evaluate higher education outcomes and may help explain why objective graduate advantages don't always translate into higher subjective wellbeing—the so-called "paradox of the dissatisfied graduate."