The degree awarding gap refers to the difference between the proportion of students from one group awarded a first or upper second-class (2:1) degree compared with another group.
A 2019 report by Universities UK (PDF) found that a student’s race and ethnicity can significantly affect their degree outcomes. More recent data from the Office for Students shows that in the 2023–2024 academic year the award gap was largest from Black heritage students (20.4%) but also significant for Asian students (9.4%), ‘other’ (10.6%) and mixed students (3.6%).
These figures have varied slightly over the years. For instance, for Black heritage students the award gap dropped to 18.3% in 2020–2021 rising to 22.4% in 2022–2023. Despite small year-on-year variations, the award gap remains persistent and significant.
The Office for Students data also shows award gaps for students from lower socio-economic backgrounds and disabled students.
The awarding gap in geography
In 2017, Vandana Desai, calculated that the degree awarding gap in geography between 2013 and 2015 was 11.5%. This was lower than the average for all subjects during this period. But this difference may have been a result of the fact that geography had lower numbers of BAME students, rather than because they were less disadvantaged in teaching and assessment.
A more recent paper by Shivani Singh et al. (2022) analysed the degree award gap in geography, environmental studies, planning and earth sciences as well as students’ experiences of minoritisation in UK universities. They found that, in 2019–2020, there was a 7.7% gap between the percentage of white students awarded a first or 2:1 compared with BAME students.
Disaggregating the BAME data showed significant disparities within this. The largest gap (23.7%) was between white students and Black British students.
Singh et al. caution that some ‘targeted interventions’ currently used to reduce the gap, such as peer to peer support, may lock BAME students into a ‘deficit model'. They also argue there is a need to develop further research (particularly on assignment and marking) to understand why the degree awarding gap is substantial for certain minoritised communities.
As context, the following two tables show the geography degree award gap for the 2019–2020 academic year. The tables are based on first degree undergraduate qualifiers and the data is drawn from HESA.
|
|
Geographical and environmental studies (natural sciences) |
Geographical and environmental studies (social sciences) |
||
|
|
% First/2:1 |
% 2:2/Third/Pass |
% First/2:1 |
% 2:2/Third/Pass |
|
BAME |
84.1 |
15.9 |
89.7 |
10.3 |
|
White |
89.5 |
10.5 |
93.7 |
6.3 |
|
Disabled |
87.8 |
12.2 |
93.6 |
6.4 |
|
Non-disabled |
88.3 |
11.7 |
92.3 |
7.7 |
|
Female |
92.6 |
7.4 |
96.3 |
3.7 |
|
Male |
82.8 |
17.2 |
87.3 |
12.7 |
|
|
Geographical and environmental studies (natural sciences) |
Geographical and environmental studies (social sciences) |
|
BAME/White |
-5.40 |
-3.98 |
|
Disabled |
0.50 |
-1.34 |
|
Male/Female |
-9.82 |
-9.05 |
Closing the degree award gap
There are several different resources for institutions working to close the degree award gap:
- With Insight Education’s 'Beyond the Awarding Gap' white paper contains advice on how to correctly approach and close the awarding gap. The organisation also runs workshops and trainings which help institutions to address this issue.
- Leading Routes tackles the degree awarding gap by producing research led, Black led evidence that reframes the gap as a structural issue and works with universities and funders to change policies and practices so that closing the gap translates into genuinely equitable postgraduate and academic outcomes for Black students.
- Advance HE have developed the Race Equality Charter that ‘provides a framework through which institutions work to identify and self-reflect on institutional and cultural barriers standing in the way of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic staff and students’.
- Universities UK have developed recommendations for universities seeking to close the degree award gap.
- Wonkhe have compiled a number of recommendations on how to address evaluation gaps.
Further reading
- Bolton, P. & Joe Lewis (2025) Equality of access and outcomes in higher education in England. House of Commons Library Research Briefing, Number 9195. UK Parliament. researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-9195/CBP-9195.pdf
- Desai, V. (2017), Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) student and staff in contemporary British Geography. Area, 49: pp. 320–323. doi.org/10.1111/area.12372.
- Singh, S., J. Pykett, P. Kraftl, A. Guisse, E. Hodgson, U.E. Humelnicu, N. Keen, S. Kéïta, N. McNaney, A. Menzel, K. N’dri, K. Junior N’goran, G. Oldknow, R. Tiéné & William Weightman (2022) Understanding the ‘degree awarding gap’ in geography, planning, geology and environmental sciences in UK higher education through peer research. Journal of Geography in Higher Education. doi.org/10.1080/03098265.2021.2007363.
