This report presents information about the benefits of Higher Education (HE) participation for the individual and society. The core of the report is a table showing a two-way taxonomy of benefits, with individual/society as one dimension and market/non-market (or wider) benefits as the other. The report covers only benefits from HE participation, so that benefits arising from research exploitation, spin-off companies, export earnings through international student fees and spending, and other aspects of HE are not included.

For many of the benefits identified, the key supporting evidence points to a relationship between the level of education achieved and the scale of the benefit. In many cases, the impact of HE (or having a degree) is explicitly considered; in other cases the evidence may refer to “additional years of education”. This report is focused on the benefits of HE, but in many cases the benefits can be demonstrated to exist as being linked to increasing levels of education and qualifications.