It feels as if a week can’t go by without another news report commenting on the number of undergraduates at Oxford and Cambridge universities from state schools. When the number goes up, it can feel as if Britain is becoming a fairer, more equal place – and when the numbers go down, we are taking a step backwards as a nation. But neither is true. If you care about the level and distribution of wellbeing across society, then the percentage of state-educated undergraduates at Oxbridge is a distraction and one of the least useful numbers you could focus on.

We like numbers that are easy to count. But moving a few hundred young people between institutions every year tells us next to nothing about the lived experiences of millions of others. It doesn’t fix under-funded comprehensives, stressed teachers or the postcode lottery of opportunity. It simply rearranges the winners. Economists call this “positional good” competition: the value of something – in this case an Oxbridge place – depends on how few other people have it. Increase the proportion of state-school entrants and you may alter who feels successful, but you haven’t altered what success means. You’ve just changed the cast in the same old play.

The happiness data are clear: beyond a certain income, relative position matters more than absolute wealth. The more we compare ourselves, the less content we feel. By endlessly debating who gets into which elite university, we are feeding a status game that makes nearly everyone a loser. Even the “winners” often suffer. Ask many state-school students who arrive at Oxbridge how they feel about their experience: anxious, out of place, performing a version of themselves to fit in. Getting through the gate doesn’t guarantee belonging or flourishing. It’s just another competitive environment where attention – the currency of happiness – is pulled toward grades and rankings. If happiness follows attention, then an obsession with elite validation keeps national attention glued to the wrong thing. We end up attending to hierarchy, not humanity.

Focusing national debate on Oxbridge misdirects policy as well as personal attention. Every minute spent on this symbolic battle is a minute not spent on interventions that improve lives. We could use that time and money to work out how to build more community spaces, support teachers etc., to boost happiness. Instead, we’re trapped in a moral theatre about who gets to dine in hallowed halls. If we wanted to attend to equality, we would value a wider range of skills and paths: regional universities, apprenticeships, creative trades, and care work. It would mean designing a society where status is not confined to two postcodes.

There are also behavioural traps at work. The human brain loves stories of exceptional individuals — the “kid from the council estate who made it to Cambridge”. They are uplifting but statistically anomalies. They reinforce the illusion that happiness is achieved by escaping ordinary life rather than respecting it and improving it. Human beings adapt quickly to new circumstances. The thrill of an elite acceptance letter fades, just as the sting of rejection does. Lasting happiness comes from relationships and connection, and not from the institutions we can list on a CV.

I was prompted to write this piece by an interesting conversation I had with a couple of very successful Oxbridge graduates last week, who were around my age. They were convinced that Oxbridge matters because their graduates go on to run the country and therefore make decisions that affect all of us. Notwithstanding the bias of self-importance (from which we all suffer), I’m not at all convinced that more state school kids at Oxbridge will make any difference to the ways in which we are governed. The only way to ensure that working class people are properly represented, for example, is for there to be more working-class people in positions of power. People from working class backgrounds who go on to join the ranks of the “elite” are often less likely to care about the lives of working-class people than those who started off privileged. I show in Happy Ever After that successful working-class people often judge poor people more harshly than upper class people do.

So yes, let’s celebrate young people who succeed against the odds. But let’s also stop pretending that the share of state school pupils at Oxbridge is a serious measure of social progress. It’s a feel-good statistic in a status-driven system. If we care about fairness, let’s look instead at whether children leave school feeling safe, supported and optimistic. If we care about genuine mobility, let’s measure whether adults feel their lives are improving year on year. And if we care about success, let’s define it according to the principles of happiness by design, not hierarchy by tradition. The goal should not be to get more state school kids into Oxbridge – but rather to build a country where nobody needs Oxbridge to feel they’ve succeeded.