Measuring and Comparing a Century of Cabinet Formation in the Higher Education Systems of the United Kingdom and the United States

This article aims to quantitatively analyze the roles of British and American university systems in educating their political elites, specifically their cabinet members, between 1922 and 2021. Employing quantitative indices, the study seeks to provide a comparative assessment of both countries’ higher education systems in political elite formation, in 10-year increments, addressing in a directly comparable manner an issue that has often been examined by qualitative approaches (mainly in comparative institutional studies or democratic theory approaches). The findings indicate that the British universities that educated their country’s cabinet members were more elite and influential than their American counterparts, whereas the American universities were more exclusive. Additionally, while only a small number of UK and US universities supplied more than one cabinet member over the century, a very small number of universities supplied a great many. This research contributes to the debate regarding the impact of higher education systems on elite formation and societal meritocracy.