Overall, 58.8% of graduates are in jobs deemed to be non-graduate roles, according to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-33983048

So Mr Blair got it wrong then?

I think the biggest problem is the assumption that *any* degree level qualification somehow gives you the aptitude to take on any role that needs a bit of intelligence and application.

I think the biggest problem is the assumption that *any* degree level qualification somehow gives you the aptitude to take on any role that needs a bit of intelligence and application.

So you can get a degree without intelligence and application?

I think Blair got it wrong of course. The 50% of school leavers going to univ looks to much like a number pulled out a hat than a number arrived at after considering the needs of industry and society for a supply of graduates.

I’m just glad my son went to univ in Scotland so paid no fees and has his student loan paid off now at age 27. And he is, I think, one of those in graduate level employment.

On the other hand the part time job I’m doing to top up my pension needs people skills along with basic numeracy and literacy and a bit of physical fitness. There are graduates doing it.

needs people skills along with basic numeracy and literacy

I know plenty of graduates who don’t have these.

‘So you can get a degree without intelligence and application?’

I did.

It’s a bit of an odd report, that. Their definition of a graduate role is one that needs a degree… But outside of professional roles there’s not that many jobs that require a degree, most jobs I’ve done have been non-graduate by this definition but that doesn’t mean they’re not appropriate for a graduate, or that having a graduate in the role isn’t advantageous.

And once you’re past first graduate roles etc the importance of a degree falls off in many industries and your track record takes over. (if you apply for my job, you need a degree. If you apply for the job one step up the ladder, you don’t!) Also o’course just because a degree’s not required for a post, doesn’t mean it’s not potentially valuable or adding productivity. Or salary 🙂 Lots of entrepreneurs with degrees who’d not qualify as a “graduate role”. Basically it’s much more complicated than this.

I’d definitely agree there’s oversupply in some industries and it’s just a given that some degrees have greater or lesser employability… You’ll never have 100% of graduates in a graduate role, by these definitions. But I’m not sure this particular study stands up too well when it comes to quantifying that.

Degrees: like dropper posts. Even if you don’t need one, that doesn’t mean it’s useless. But sometimes they’re unreliable and expensive and… heavy? Yeah.

“50% of school leavers to be of undergraduate caliber” is a very different objective to “50% of school leavers to go to university”.

The first objective is 100% where we need to go as a society to drive productivity and improve standards of living for all. The second objective without the first is just pissing money up the wall.

So you can get a degree without intelligence and application?

That’s not what I said.

I said that the assumption that having a degree implied you had the “aptitude for any job” was incorrect.

A good working knowledge of Middle English isn’t necessarily going to cut the mustard if you’re being asked to project manage a section of HS2 or whatever.

There’s lot’s of very bright people with degrees who struggle to open a box of cereal without spilling the contents, tbh.

Another point is in what time period? Jumping straight into a graduate role from uni is pretty rare and always has been. Many people have always done “non graduate roles” for a while before gettign their desired jobs. As other have said for most industreis how do you define a graduate job. I work in engineering / software an even though everyone here has a degree or higher I see no reason why you could not some in without, do some self suddy and some other sort courses and do the job.

There’s lot’s of very bright people with degrees who struggle to open a box of cereal without spilling the contents, tbh.

Have you got a camera in my kitchen?

There’s lot’s of very bright people with degrees who struggle to open a box of cereal without spilling the contents, tbh.

As my best mate says about his brother, who’s got post-grad qualifications coming out of every orifice

“He could calculate how many beans were in a tin, but he couldn’t tell you how to ****ing open it!” 😆

He works at the foreign office.

My wife doesn’t have a degree, whereas I do, what I find is that there’s a much finer range of jobs that suit me and my salary expectations. Whereas there is a greater range of jobs she can do, but at a lower pay level.

I’m grateful I went to uni and have as a result had jobs that have paid me well. I’m also glad I’m not doing it now and facing very large debts as a result of it.

For reference I did have c£14k debt to clear though, was good when repayments for that finished!

Mr Northwind nails it..

Don’t assume that all of those graduates actually want a so called ‘graduate job’

I certainly didn’t have any aspirations to jump on that bandwagon but I’m still glad I went into further education for various reasons.

Not all who go to Uni are chasing that ‘live to work’ lifestyle that many graduate schemes require.

Firstly, 50% going to uni as a target predates Blair.

And 50% of jobs clearly don’t need degrees, ergo, a lot of graduates won’t get a graduate type job.

A lot of employers are happier to look at a bright, hard working non graduate these days, especially with apprenticeships getting up some steam.

The assumption I hate is that the point of going to university is to get a job. It shouldn’t be. It should be to learn and spread knowledge.

Most jobs don’t require a knowledge of biology or history, but do we begrudge teaching those subjects at school? Of course not, society has decided that it’s useful for everyone to learn a bit of those subjects.

It should be the same for university. I’m very glad I went to uni in Scotland for free, and got to study a fascinating subject I loved instead of being streamlined towards a career path.

Mr Northwind nails it..

+1

That’s my experience. I did an MSc and ended up in a role that wasn’t graduate specific but the skills and knowledge I developed made me an ideal candidate for the role.

Fast forward a few years, I’m now in a new job and my Graduate & Postgraduate degrees are irrelevant as the skills, knowledge and reputation I’ve built up has got me the job. It’s a very good career path but not one that requires a degree.

Im surprised that this figure has only recently been banded around.

I think its been going on for 20 yrs or so that people have been coming out of university and not getting a ‘graduate’ job (whatever one may be)

I know when I graduated 20 yrs ago the big idea was that you came out of uni and got on a Company Graduate trainee scheme. I saw loads of people not getting on to these schemes.

Now its even worse, not only do you go to university and not get a job, but you get a massive debt for the privalidge too

The thing is that a lot of industries just started specifying that you needed a degree as a bare minimum just to get an interview. If you didn’t have it on your CV, then it went straight in the bin.

Do you need a degree for the job I do? Do you hell! I colour things in for a living! But when I graduated (and its no different now) there were very few opportunities for you if you fancied it s a career but didn’t have the necessary degree level qualification.

The irony of it is, that though my degree is very industry specific, I don’t think it properly equipped me for a job in the industry at all. I leant more actual useful stuff in the first few months, in the (real world) job, than I’d learnt in the previous 3 years sat talking about it.

So you can’t blame people for going to uni, and taking their chances when this is the case. Its the attitude of the HR departments that needs to change. They need to stop specifying degrees as a baseline for interview, and start looking at real world experience.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/editorials/learning-vs-earning-tony-blairs-determination-to-push-schoolleavers-into-further-education-has-been-exposed-as-a-flawed-policy-9722456.html

I always think it quite sad that a degree is only ever linked to future employment/earning potential, rather than a good education being a thing worth having in itself.

People seem to understand why you might blow 30k on a swanky new car but not why you might blow 30k because you would like to acquire a greater appreciation of medieval art.

‘So you can get a degree without intelligence and application?’

If my Facebook feed is anything to go by then yes.

There seems to be a disconnect between aspiration and reality whereby we believe a degree is a ticket to happiness, a good career and social mobility but somehow also that those results can happen when graduates make up 50%ish of entries to the workforce.

I guess that’s why employers for graduate schemes have a number of screening steps for applicants – there’s such a number and variety of the ‘quality’ of candidates holding that 2:1 or 1st that there needs to be many rounds of QC.

Still, it does allow those who’ve gone to a naff uni but who show aptitude beyond academics to get through and get on.

University a waste of time say bitter people

Essentially the issue is that we don’t have an industrial policy which supports the development of a industries which provide high skill, high margin, high pay.

This article really struct a chord with me:

To grasp the dead-end jobs boom head to the carwash

I barely remember hand car-washes as a child growing up in the 1980s / early 1990s, now they are everywhere. Basically the bad employers, who don’t want to invest are allowed to under-cut good employers in a race to the bottom.

It spells low investment and therefore low productivity.

I’d second the difference between education and training. University is for educting people. That knowledge may or may not be needed in your furture jobs. Training is for vocational courses and employers.

I always think it quite sad that a degree is only ever linked to future employment/earning potential, rather than a good education being a thing worth having in itself.

Yes you have CBI to thank for that, where the media rags report them bleating on that the education system produces unemployable people, or a skills gap etc…
which leads to gov’t changing education to be a tick box exercise that produces kids with ‘qualifications’ that fit into a CBI pigeonhole but not widely educated, rounded individuals…
at the same time as the value of a British degree (when 10% of the pop went to Univ) was de-valued when globalisation meant anyone from any country with any degree could compete against them (and many of those countries had much higher % going to Uni and poorer quality degrees) but those CBI companies employed them ‘cos they were cheaper and ‘had a degree’.

It’s only now for the 25% of the country going to Uni and getting shoddy degrees that it matters so much because going to Uni now costs ca £60K so value for money becomes quite relevant.

So Mr Blair got it wrong then?

After Iraq you’re surprised?

This article really struct a chord with me:

To grasp the dead-end jobs boom head to the carwash

That should really be “To grasp the money laundering / exploitation boom, head to the car wash”

Think about it how many guys wash how many cars an hour at £3 a time. There isn’t enough money to pay wages in the business.

So, you’re left with a few options of how it works – either you’re dealing with at best an explotation scenario where people are paid less than minimum wage, or at worst they are coerced and in a slavery situation. Or, a business which generates a large volume of cash payments is an excellent place to launder money.

The only thing that surprises me is that nobody seems to think about how it works.. That the Guardian missed it too doesn’t surprise me though 😀

a business which generates a large volume of cash payments is an excellent place to launder money.

Exhibit 1: Breaking Bad.

jam bo – Member

needs people skills along with basic numeracy and literacy

I know plenty of graduates who don’t have these.[/quote]

Looks around the office…. hmmmmmm I think you have a point there.

Most of what you write Northwind I agree with however this

And once you’re past first graduate roles etc the importance of a degree falls off in many industries and your track record takes over.

isn’t true. I’ve worked for a number of companies where a degree is required to get past a certain level, in some cases the company has supported individuals to get a degree, but it still has been necessary for progression.

isn’t true

is true in the types of companies you would want to work for…

That’s my experience. I did an MSc and ended up in a role that wasn’t graduate specific but the skills and knowledge I developed made me an ideal candidate for the role

Ph.D
2 x 2yr postdoc research posts, one at Oxford.
Now a copper 🙄

TurnerGuy – Member

isn’t true

is true in the types of companies you would want to work for…[/quote]

Isn’t strictly true.

Loads of companies only ask for basic level of education, the rest is upto you.

I did say “in many industries”, it’s not universal.

Personally I think we send far too many people to university when they (and the economy) would be much better off if they did vocational courses rather than a completely pointless academic qualification (of dubious standard). If you don’t get a degree premium in your pay packet, you probably would have been better advised to do something else.

I always think it quite sad that a degree is only ever linked to future employment/earning potential, rather than a good education being a thing worth having in itself.

well, this

but, sadly, someone’s got to pay for the education

which inevitably means that

Of course not, society has decided that it’s useful for everyone to learn a bit of those subjects.

It should be the same for university.

is a bit difficult to achieve

and here we are, with crap loads of people going to university to learn a lot about one subject and then not ending up with a shiny job to pay the fees back with, because the shiny job story turned out to be a crock of poo and the only thing available was mcdonalds.

so I think, after careful consideration, although in principle I’d love anyone who wanted (and was able to benefit from it) to go on through college & university level education for free, the reality doesn’t appear to be quite working out

and something else, where’s the list of subjects that society considers it OK to go on and learn a lot about?

What would it include?

biology?
history?
management?
klingon?
madonna studies?
brewing and distilling?
surfing?

I don’t know, because that list probably depends on whether you think the person receiving a monkey load of education should then go on to contribute “more” to society on the back of it. If you don’t think they should, then anything could be on it. I guess.

We ALWAYS appear in lists of bullshit degrees 😆 Foundation degree in heavy metal, Harry Potter studies, Horse Whispering… then Brewing and Distilling. It’s a proper serious science degree! (and they’re usually not as drunk as the actuarial students)

Appropriate for the thread though- it has a phenomenal employability rate, graduates are in huge demand, but very few of those jobs will be “graduate” by the standards of that report. Many grads go on to found their own businesses, like Brewdog and Stewarts frinstance. And because there’s so few brewing/distilling graduates in the workforce, the industry can’t insist on hiring graduates so most posts wouldn’t fulfil the “need a degree” requirement.

So- massively useful, massively employable, “Not a proper graduate job”, boo.

somewhatslightlydazed – Member
I always think it quite sad that a degree is only ever linked to future employment/earning potential, rather than a good education being a thing worth having in itself.

People seem to understand why you might blow 30k on a swanky new car but not why you might blow 30k because you would like to acquire a greater appreciation of medieval art.

I decided to go to Uni for exactly that reason 🙂 I earn less now than what I did before I did my degree, but I’d like to think I’m a better person for having done it. My new profession is certainly more challenging and I feel like it’s taken me places and that I’ve done things I never would have even considered before.

It cost me £23k to go + £160k in lost earnings. I still think it was worth it.