Employers forced to turn to A-level results as grade inflation devalues university degrees

Grade inflation is devaluing university degrees in the eyes of employers, forcing them to place more emphasis on A-level passes.

Figures showed that 58 per cent of graduates now leave university with a first-class or upper-second degree, compared with just 25 per cent a decade ago.

David Thomas, chief executive of the Careers Research Advisory Centre, called on universities to follow the example of exam boards and introduce the equivalent of an A-star pass so employers could single out high-achievers.

"The sort of work that today produces a first-class degree would have produced an upper second a generation ago," he said. "Likewise, an upper second today would be a lower second a generation ago. So there has been a genuine shift and - let's be honest about it - it's a sort of 'grade drift'.

"The present first-class degree is still a pretty good result, but about 45 per cent of students will now get that upper-second pass. Obviously, with the increasing numbers now going into higher education, it does make it more difficult for employers to differentiate.

"As a result, they are paying more attention to A-level grades because there is a greater spread of results there and they want to see some level of consistency between A-level and degree-level achievement."

He said that if a student came from a struggling comprehensive and had reached university through a non-traditional higher-education route, most employers would take this into account. "Employers all say they will take a number of factors into account," he said.

However, a common concern among bosses that had approached Careers Research Advice Centre - an education charity which is a leading careers-research organisation - was to see more differentiation between individual candidates' achievements.

Mr Thomas's comments are likely to receive a mixed response from academics. Many vice-chancellors argue that the increase in top degree passes reflects higher standards in universities and the hard work done by students.

However, there is an increasing lobby that believes it would be more helpful to release students' marks than to introduce the equivalent of an A-star grade. They argue that this would help employers differentiate between applicants.

Margaret Hodge, the minister in charge at the time of the launch of the White Paper on Higher Education, asked universities to consider changes to their degree structures during the consultation period on the Government's proposals.

Ministers would be happy to see the old system of degree classifications replaced with a simple points score, as is done with A-levels.