Which graduates are most likely to make 50k+ in their careers?

You can send your child to an independent schools relatively easily on 60k, thats upper middle class.

Medicine and dentistry are an obvious answer, after that it gets a little blurry and it depends on the university and courses.
Wondering what you guys think?

What, so now class is purely determined by what school you go to? This is completely new to me. And there I was thinking that class was just as much about who you know and where you came from, oh well, that's me beat. I guess you had better go and edit Wikipedia and write a paper on this theory of yours.
Going to, or sending you child to, an independent school is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition to be a member of the upper middle class.

Please dont tell me your thinking of doing a degree based on potential grad earnings?

This sounds a bit ridiculous, you are saying that investment banks pay a premium to their oxbridge graduates? Also this big company that your physics friend was offered, is it a bank?

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Its a big factor. Sorry, I care about my quality of life.

60k salary would firmly put you in upper middle class outside of london

There are no classes

Whatever you wan't to call those kinds of socio-economic structures, there's no doubting that they exist. The UK is one of the most economically unequal and socially immobile countries in the Western world, and class (or any other label you ascribe) hugely determines life chances due to the access to resources, contacts and role models that a middle or upper-middle class life affords. I say this as someone who is from a working class background (no one in immediate family ever went to university, state education, modest family income, no 'professionals' (e.g. solicitor, architect, highly trained healthcare professional) in the family). I'm sorry, it's sad but it's true.

To add to what the original poster said, yes £60k outside London does put you squarely in the upper-middle class. In the North-East and Yorkshire a salary in the mid £40k range puts you in the top 10% of earners. It's all relative to where you live, as in London the top 10% of earners take home an average of £80k+.

Of course not, but its very common in upper middle class to go to independent schools. As are certain occupations e.g doctors, dentists, lawyers, engineers etc. As are salary ranges.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_British_Class_Survey#Elite

EDIT: Funny how dentists are in the 'elite' class and pharmacists aren't even in the 'established' middle class lol

Please dont tell me your thinking of doing a degree based on potential grad earnings?

That's a completely normal thing to consider.

I know classes do exist in reality, my point is that I don't like how people are separated on the basis of their earnings or lifestyle in principle so they shouldn't

I think it's only relevant to use classes now to show how different the opportunities are for children of the different classes and parts of the country

for me money has never come into it, if it has why would i be doing a degree where the governments CUTTING jobs and services?

ooooh lets see, maybe because im passionate about it and want to help people!

I don't like the terms either to be honest; they're too vague and therefore open to unintentional or intentional alteration depending on a person's agenda or viewpoint. The perfect example of this is a recent article by The Telegraph which referred to a person earning £120k a year as 'middle class'. Anyone with a hint of brain matter would know that that's rubbish, as the median full-time income in this country is roughly £26.5k, with regional variations placing that figure at around £20k for many areas of the country (basically, anywhere above Watford). T

To me, the recent class class calculator from the BBC was on the money. It combined social, cultural and financial capital to determine one's class, which is a good reflection of how one can differentiate classes and the means by which the class system influences life chances (i.e. not just due to financial capital, but also through access to social capital). If your parents know a chief exec, and you want to get into business, or they know a Consultant Psychologist in private practice and you want to be a Psychologist, you've got a better chance of getting helpful experience via those contacts than if your parents didn't have them.

On a personal note, for me class is a mixture of cultural, social, political and economic capital. One's classification according to the latter is in my opinion dependent on regional variation; an individual can be middle class in the North East on a salary of £35-40k a year, but might not be considered middle class in a financial sense if they earned that in London.

But he's right, it's a perfectly normal thing to do. Some people truly are that passionate, but many if given the choice between, say, being a Doctor (which they want to do because they like that sort of thing and want to help people) for the living wage and, say, going into finance, which they also like but not quite as much, for 50k I expect a huge number would go for the latter.