Paying private school fees does not guarantee a better job after university, with new research showing there is no long-term employment advantage as public school graduates earn as much in equally prestigious occupations.

Research fellow at Canberra University Jenny Chesters analysed data from the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia project and found private school students were no more likely to get a full-time job than public school students.

And while private school students were more likely to attend one of Australia's most prestigious universities, even this did not lead to a higher income, Dr Chesters found.

"If a parent wants to pay to send their child to a private school, I don’t have a problem with that, but they should know that if they think paying for an education is an investment and you will get a monetary return on it, you probably won’t," she said.

Dr Chesters looked at the data for 2168 people aged 24 to 35 in 2012. About 70 per cent went to government schools, 17 per cent to Catholic schools and 13.5 per cent to independent schools.