Look for the confounder

I have blogged before about correlation and causation, and the importance of looking for possible "confounders" when there is a correlation but no causative relationship.
Today I want to apply this to education.
I have long been skeptical about the annual improvements in A level results, supposedly demonstrating the improving quality of school leavers but possibly indicating continuously falling standards. I have also thought that this may just be sour grapes on my part, and a desperate attempt to try to justify that A levels were simply much harder "in my day"...but that's just the grumpy old man coming out in me.
This year, 2012, the proportion of students obtaining an A* grade has fallen for the first time after 20 years of that continuous "improvement". A shame for the students themselves.
Also this year is the first year where the A level students of this summer become the University freshers of September/October. This first year when Unis can charge fees up to GBP9,000 per year.
What's the connection? There are, of course, a number of possibilities:

• There is no connection
• One is causing the other...and since the fee increases were announced before any student sat their exams, it has to be the fee increases causing the poorer results
• There is something else going on, with this "something else" potentially causing both, 
• or this "something else" is sitting in between the 2 ie high fees causes X which causes poorer results 

The point of this blog is not to answer the question - I simply don't have the data to be able to prove any of the above. 

I have my opinion, of course...but I can't prove I'm right with my assertion that government policy is driving both of these effects - with the proportion of people going to Uni just getting too high, the disparity between the number of graduates and the number of graduate jobs becoming unsustainable. The government have decided to reduce the numbers...financial disincentives combined with managing qualifying standards (don't try to tell me that the previous 20 years wasn't a "managed" result).

My point is that such options are always possible when there is a correlation. In business it is critically important to look for the real reasons...not to assume, not to guess, not to stick with an industry standard belief...in order to drive your business forward.