How much difference a high ATAR can make to your salary

With ATAR also strongly correlated to wealth, the career outcomes of high-ATAR individuals also probably reflected the networks and connections gained through parents and schools, she said.

The e61 Institute research note What’s in an ATAR? How Can University Admission Scores Predict Future Income? analysed taxation data to look at the relationship between university admissions ranks and long-term earnings outcomes.

Dr Griselda compared the earnings of individuals with varying ATARs who
enrolled in university, those who never enrolled, and those who went directly into the workforce.

The research found that of 30-year-old workers who left school with an ATAR of 95 or above, one in 10 earn more than $156,000 a year, while another one in 10 earn less than $30,000.

Dr Griselda said childbearing and undertaking additional education, such as a PhD, might explain those in the lowest income bracket.

At the other end of the spectrum, while people who don’t go to university get an initial income bump since they don’t get hit with the opportunity cost of study over work, those benefits soon peter out.

The analysis comes as demand for university appears to be waning. Undergraduate enrolments have declined by 13 per cent since 2016, with NSW and ACT university applications for 2024 the lowest for 13 years.

The number of Australian students studying for a bachelor’s degree has fallen from 939,000 in 2016 to just 815,700 this year, according to Australian Bureau of Statistics data.

A study by the Melbourne Institute at the University of Melbourne found that nearly 60 per cent of people believed expensive tuition fees was the main barrier to people taking on university study.

It also found that 52 per cent of people said university might not lead to better job outcomes, while the same proportion said too much student debt was a barrier. These perceptions were equally shared between people who already had a degree and those who had never attended.

While a full analysis of the data according to gender is yet to be published, Dr Griselda said early insights included that even in the highest ATAR group women’s salaries tended to plateau in their 30s, while male earnings continued to grow over time.

Michael Brennan, e61’s chief executive, said people should take heart that ATAR alone was not the single predictor of lifetime income and that a raft of other factors, such as choice, circumstances and happenstance, all played a role.