Researchers also state that a grammar school education does not appear to have increased working class pupils’ chances of getting a degree.
The study is based on the education histories of more than 7,700 people in England and Wales who are being followed by the 1970 British Cohort Study.
It finds that pupils who attended private secondary school during the 1980s were around one-and-a-half-times more likely to graduate from a mainstream university than both grammar and comprehensive students with the same A level results.
Furthermore, they were two-and-a-half times more likely to get a degree from a Russell Group university.
The statistics show that, overall, 16 per cent of the people included in the analysis graduated from mainstream universities, while seven per cent gained degrees from either the 24 Russell Group institutions or two other highly selective universities – Bath and St Andrews.
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