[Closed] Half of graduates regret going to University..

I read that as..

Half of all parents regret sending their children to University.

😉

.... "according to the research by Barclays, which runs its own apprenticeship schemes."

half of graduates have pointless / poor value degrees?

half of graduates disappointed they now have to get a job?

half of graduates realise they don't need a sociology degree to pick fruit in Norfolk?

The next big financial scandal - mis-sold University Courses.

But no one told me I wasn't guaranteed a gold-plated salary after paying out for fees and a loan...

I didn't go to uni but I did my A levels and an apprenticeship.

My three brothers all went to uni.

I didn't go to uni and don't regret it 🙂  One brother will certainly earn more, the other two probably have an equal earning opportunity.

I don't necessarily regret going to uni.

But I wish I'd done an apprenticeship first and went to uni as a mature student once I knew the why

I'd have got more out of it than going straight from school.

How ever if I'd done an apprenticeship first I'd have left with big loans. I got lucky with timing.

I don't think people see the benefits of a degree until the second half of their working lives. I didn't go to Uni, and after 20 years in I.T. I have got as far as I am likely to go. Had I gotten a degree under my belt then many more opportunities would be open to me now.

Rather than blaming the students.......

I did a masters in Chemical engineering and chemistry, tbh I regret doing the chemistry as despite the university's insistence that this new degree would be in demand In don't know anyone who actually went into a chemistry role except those that used it as a stepping stone into PhD (where it would have been more useful as the bleeding edge of chemical engineering is inevitably driven by advances in chemistry).

The problem over the last 10 years since the crash is a general downturn in engineering jobs as engineering projects need billions in financing from banks and governments, which just hasn't been happening. So even 'vocational' degrees like engineering haven't resulted in good jobs like they would have done previously.

I now work in television and its quite different. There's a large oversupply of graduates prepared to do fairly menial tasks, but there always has been. If someone said their kid wanted to work in TV or film I'd tell them to find a job first as you certainly don't need a degree (GCSE's would be pushing it tbh). An apprenticeship  might be the best route but I'm making decent money just turning up, talking to people and asking lots of questions.

University is basically a pyramid scheme anyway.

Each undergrad, foreign student, post grad etc is a sold product, ie income. And a significant income.

Why on earth would any uni not want to constantly increase numbers and sell more...? Uni is not to serve the needs of education - it is money.

R4 had a programme on about the number of PhD's that are now finding no work - apparently we have 3-4x the number of PhD's going on than we actually need across all industries etc...

In Scotland the uni's make up something like the richest 7 out of 10 charities by income and investments.

Time for govt. to limit course numbers, fund apprenticeships and colleges to the same level (£9k per head per year) etc.

I did a masters in Chemical engineering and chemistry, tbh I regret doing the chemistry as despite the university’s insistence that this new degree would be in demand In don’t know anyone who actually went into a chemistry role except those that used it as a stepping stone into PhD (where it would have been more useful as the bleeding edge of chemical engineering is inevitably driven by advances in chemistry).

Just interested ... was that degree of RSC ???

I know this had a lot of discussion at the time.... and somehow I have an ex-wife and more than 1 ex-GF that did chemistry in one way or another...

I also find a lot of chemical engineers doing other non-chemistry or chem eng stuff... and it seems to have provided a pretty good base?

Having done 50/50 of turning up and leaving after 2 year it's been interesting

Out of school in the late 90's career advice was pointless and I don't think I even got a chat about stuff till after UCAS applications went in. Being a fairly traditional science or arts school things like engineering never came up. So ended up in Chemistry which was a big mistake.

For the first 10 years a degree would have opened so many more doors and got me into things.

Having got where I am now it really doesn't matter and I enjoy what I do, it does always surprise people when they find out I don't have one. At some point I might be having an interesting conversation about joining an MSc without one.

I did chuckle when somebody asked if I would deliver some lectures later this year....

getting 50% of people into Uni was a mistake, but it was part of a problem that didn't offer viable alternative paths for people.

Having met a lot of grads probably the first thing that knocks them back a bit is when they find out just how green they are leaving uni and how long it takes to get going and get on in a lot of places.

I'd like to know exactly how the question was phrased.  I don't regret going to uni even through I still earn less than I did before I went (IT, now engineering). What I learnt and the experience of going to Uni is both invaluable and somewhat intangible, but most definitely worth it.

I don't regret it, maybe people think they'll magically get rich if they go to uni or something.

people doing degrees in heavy metal drumming etc might come to regret the debt/usefulness ratio...

I wonder how many graduates realise that it would be even more difficult to get a job now without a degree, and it has nothing to do with needing a degree for the role. I am not a graduate, and my CV wouldn't even be passed onto my manager if I was to apply for my job now. Regardless of experience when they a getting over 100 applications for every half decent job, CV's get whittled down very quickly and education is one of the first things recruiters and HR look at to bin a CV, before the recruiting manager even sees them.

How many people that didn't go to University regret not having that opportunity?  Pretty difficult to guess what could have been....

<span style="font-size: 0.8rem;">regret university... not a chance... it was pretty much all fun from start to finish</span>

I am not a graduate, and my CV wouldn’t even be passed onto my manager if I was to apply for my job now.

Yep it's been devalued as a currency but that just means those without look even worse, thankfully 18 years of work counts for more

I think prospective students should be given incentives to study "more useful" degrees over "less useful" degrees. Defining which degrees are which will be contentious though

Also how does the number of graduates with a degree in Television Production compare to the number of jobs available in television production? 10 to 1, 100 to 1?

I had a great time at Uni, how could anyone regret it?

Half of graduates regret going to University..

I'm in the half that regret not going enough.

Who is it that has a massive chip on his shoulder and inferiority complex about not going to University?  I'd like to hear what he has to say.

I did the full run BSc.->MSc.->DPhil. and I enjoyed every minute.  Except for the 5 months I spent writing up my DPhil. but the preceding 8 years were a blast.

I had a great time at Uni, how could anyone regret it?

Like any good party the hangover when your wallet is empty, you are miles from home and really have no idea what you did and what you are going to do next, then you check your credit card and find you maxed that out and work for not much more than minimum wage.

The drug dealers and pub landlords of Salford were all extremely glad that me and my mates all went to Uni 😀

Society changes during the Blair era and his “uni is open to all, and there is a funding mechanism which will allow you to go... sign here”

Can’t blame the initiative can you, but the mechanism and post Uni marketplace isn’t really fit for purpose.

Can’t blame aspiring youth neither, those with an outlook geared to academic subjects it’s a clear path... those who go to uni with less clear objectives will undeniably fall foul to the current marketplace for employees.

Regret going? Nope, I had a blast, learned loads, sailed and drank beer and met my wife there.

Has it added to my employment career, yes in the first few years it opened up a lot of doors ... but I had the wherewithal to go open them first. Since then? I don’t think I’ve ever been asked about a degree qualification.

MOAB is correct in his hypothesis, Education is an industry, ever since the Govt cut funding the system has had to fill the gap with a mechanism that is weighed heavily against the student... but the university doesn’t care, it’s just providing a product and selling that product to a demographic that aspires to it.

Is a degree necessarily the best option? No, for a lot of students it simply isn’t.

The article is only about graduates of the last five years, and those in London, so not applicable to most here. Those in London are more likely to be financially motivated, more likely to feel completely screwed by the housing market, and more likely to feel surrounded by people with more money and less education. Outside of London the figures may be very different.

I know I could be much better off in all respects if I had taken a different route (either in or out of university) but that is with hindsight* and frankly my uni days really were the best days of more life, or at least some of them.

* Buy lots of shares in Apple / bitcoins at crucial moments for instance.

I regret the degree I did (Biology), not sure I'd go as far as saying I regret going to university, although had my fees been more than 1k a year I probably would.

Having a degree has been useful, but only in terms of ticking a box. It don't think it demonstrares anything in terms of aptitude that 3 A's at Alevel wouldn't.

Having the 'wrong' degree for the area I work in has almost certainly been a hindrance. Despite more than a decade of experience not having the correct qualification can still be a barrier.

Just interested … was that degree of RSC ???

I know this had a lot of discussion at the time…. and somehow I have an ex-wife and more than 1 ex-GF that did chemistry in one way or another…

I also find a lot of chemical engineers doing other non-chemistry or chem eng stuff… and it seems to have provided a pretty good base?

Sheffield was the only uni to offer the 'and' course. We could pick in the 4th year if we wanted to graduate as MSc or MEng.

As I said I suspect the only real jobs for that degree are in things like R&D for pharma or catalsyst design. Chemistry and chemical engineering really don't have as much overlap as anyone outside the industry would suppose.

Most Chen eng grads end up working in investment banking as its obviously very numerical and almost entirely made up of empirical modeling.

Also how does the number of graduates with a degree in Television Production compare to the number of jobs available in television production? 10 to 1, 100 to 1?

I've no idea, I obviously only meet the ones in work. Its a bit of a whipping boy for pointless degrees, but someone has to make all those sick edits for MTB companies, and it can't be worse the .The ratio of English literature degrees to English teachers.

I think its more to do with which collage you go to.  I'd say 50% of the people I meet seems to have been to the same collage (nfts). The other 40% did something entirely unrelated to TV or came into it from another discipline like electronics.

Going to uni was the easiest way of me getting out of my shithole home town, in fact education and future job prospects were a long way down the list.

I don't regret it but then I left with 15k debt, the guy I sit next to left with 45k debt.

University Vice-Chancellor now seems to be the job de jour if you want to get paid an absolutely obscene shed-load of cash

Manchester Met's turnover last year was over half a billion quid

I graduated 15 years ago. Don't regret it, I learnt a lot (some course-related, mostly life stuff) great experience.

BUT 18 is far too early to choose what to do, with hindsight I picked the completely the wrong course and should have done something totally different. I chose a course which would almost guarentee me a job if I didn't completely balls it up but realised half way through that wasn't actually what I wanted a job in, should have chosen something just because it was interesting to study and worried about the job later. Ended up in low paid jobs anyway, if I'd done a different course I could have an equally badly paid but more fun job.

Graduated in 2003 with £12k-ish of debt, now have £14k of debt, never earned enough to pay it off, doesn't really bother me.

Most Chen eng grads end up working in investment banking as its obviously very numerical and almost entirely made up of empirical modeling.

Just as I started uni, the stat was that ChemEng graduates had an average starting salary in the £40k range if I remember correctly. It was significantly higher than other subjects.

The only 2 career paths from that degree seemed to be either O&G or banking. This was before the 2009 recession.

I don’t regret going, but I do regret the 3 years of pissing money away behind the union bar & not being a bit more circumspect as it took a long time to pay it all back.

This survey seems pretty out of line with others but this:

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I regret the degree I did (Biology), not sure I’d go as far as saying I regret going to university,"

Really is incredibly commonplace, stats for over a decade find that about 50% of graduates agree or strongly agree with this.

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But I think the London part is probably what's throwing it- the climate there really is different to the rest of the UK, partly that there's a higher expectation of going to uni but more that there's a huge desire to stay in London no matter what. Whereas just about everywhere else in the country, far more students want to move away.

Scotroot sed> The next big financial scandal – mis-sold University Courses.

I truly hope so.

I truly hope so.

Me too, I just spent the last few weeks doing the texts to get compensation and the autodialers

Shouldn't the headline be: "half of all graduates regret not being more focused in their early career decisions" or "half of all graduates realise that 16-18 is probably not the best time to be making life-defining career decisions"..... or " current system makes it unnecessarily difficult to change career later in life".

As someone who works a lot on recruitment in my job I wouldn't rule anyone without a degree out of the pool. But we are looking for the right kind of person and experience.

However, no regrets about mine, admittedly it was before full fee costs, but I still came out about £15k in debt, however I have been lucky and hard working since so have cleared all of that and earned a lot more than I would have without the degree mainly because of opportunities after and the people I met during it.

My 2p.

I didn't go, the support wasn't there at home and frankly neither was the desire.

I'm not surprised at the 50/50 split really, that roughly the split between my graduate school peers who either went on to 'change the world' even in a tiny way, and those you joined the workplace at 21 with a degree that wasn't a prerequisite for a job and found themselves a bit behind everyone else with 3 years of work on their CV.

My eldest has just finished Year 7 in school and already they're chatting about Uni places, for a lot of people it's become a normal, right of passage.

My wife holds 2 Uni degrees, and as above, I don't have one, but we agree, if he wants to go to Uni with our support, it needs to be to study for something that leads to a job, because the world doesn't need another Michael Mouse Grad, you're better off going backpacking for a year to 'grow as a person' and save yourself the 50k debt.

As someone who works a lot on recruitment in my job I wouldn’t rule anyone without a degree out of the pool. But we are looking for the right kind of person and experience.

The difference between recruiting for 1 position and recruiting for an intake. Plenty of places will have the first cut done before any CV's get to them and if you say grad and no degree is on there the CV won't pass.If you are filtering 200 CV's for one role you need a quick way to cut them down.

As someone who just graduated from uni this summer, something I overwhelmingly noticed was that the people who perhaps regretted their degree choice were the ones who went to Uni straight after A-levels simply as it was the done thing and just picked a subject they liked the sound off, rather than based on career prospects.

Most of the people who have graduate jobs lined up were those who went to uni with a set career goal, ie gaining the required qualifications to be a lawyer, doctor, optician et al and knew that was the field they wanted to go into from the start.

The people who are now coming out with no jobs in the pipeline are those in the former category who went for the experience and a lack of knowledge of other options. IMO the problem completely lies with a lack of early career advise and work experience. Having multiple work experience weeks at GCSE/AS level, full time career advisers at school and greater advertisement of other options such as apprenticeships is the way forward, rather than an issue with the universities themselves who are only too happy to take the cash.

That said I think very few people regret university itself, for the experience is great and for most people is their chance to move away from home and establish themselves with the aid of a supportive environment.

My wife holds 2 Uni degrees, and as above, I don’t have one,

Technically, on average you each have one degree 😉

...something I overwhelmingly noticed was that the people who perhaps regretted their degree choice were the ones who went to Uni straight after A-levels simply as it was the done thing and just picked a subject they liked the sound off, rather than based on career prospects.

^^ this

Most of the people who have graduate jobs lined up were those who went to uni with a set career goal, ie gaining the required qualifications to be a lawyer, doctor, optician et al and knew that was the field they wanted to go into from the start.

^^ and this

The people who are now coming out with no jobs in the pipeline are those in the former category who went for the experience and a lack of knowledge of other options. IMO the problem completely lies with a lack of early career advise and work experience. Having multiple work experience weeks at GCSE/AS level, full time career advisers at school and greater advertisement of other options such as apprenticeships is the way forward, rather than an issue with the universities themselves who are only too happy to take the cash.

^^ and this as well

rocket jr graduated last week and says exactly the same thing. Congratulations and good luck in the future enigmas

Hands up if you got a grant to go to uni ??

Me.

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As someone who just graduated from uni this summer, something I overwhelmingly noticed was that the people who perhaps regretted their degree choice were the ones who went to Uni straight after A-levels simply as it was the done thing and just picked a subject they liked the sound off, rather than based on career prospects.

That's certainly true but in the longer term, this changes a bit and a large number of grads regret doing something sensible rather than what they actually wanted (and a huuuuuuuge number of dropouts and course changers reach that conclusion before the end of the course, don't forget about those).

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"Go to university because that's what people do" is probably the single biggest issue of all though. I mean, my job is literally to get kids to come to my uni, but it's also to get the right kids on the right course, we don't want anyone here who shouldn't be any more than they want to be in the wrong place or on the wrong course. So that's a business and a student and a moral need really but we spend so much time basically saying "go elsewhere" or essentially "get your shit together". So many kids basically have no idea and the parents say "talk to the guy from teh university and he'll tell you where to go" and it's just not the right way to get to the right place.

The really interesting and worthwhile conversations are almost never with the kids who ask "what will I do at uni" but "should I" or "can I".

My wife holds 2 Uni degrees, and as above, I don’t have one,

Technically, on average you each have on degree

I do tell her as we share everything now we've got once each. I'm welcome to the Sports Management degree apparently, after-all I'm paying half the student debt of it now ha ha.

Hands up if you got a grant to go to uni ??

Me.

No grant but no fee's 1 year of loan, no degree to show for it.

What made you drop out? Course/Uni/Culture/saw no future in obtaining a degree/other..

Hands up if you got a grant to go to uni ??

Me.

Our careers officer at school  was at a bit of a loss because, for the previous 30 years, everyone had streamed out of the school gates on the last Friday and then streamed through the gates of the steelworks on the following Monday.

When this was no a longer an option (Thatcher innit.) the careers officer effectively offered you two options.

If you were a bit thick, he told you to join the Army. If you had some  O grades he told you to be a Quantity Surveyor.

He'd obviously read about in a book with no real concept of what it actually entails.

In my Uni intake of 100 students, 6 were from my high school. 40 were from Malaysia, sponsored by their government.

Our school accounted for 10% of the UK students.

What made you drop out? Course/Uni/Culture/saw no future in obtaining a degree/other..

Apparently exam results were meant to be better, that wasn't int he prospectus, they said turn up have fun and get some letters on the way out. Still maintaining I left by mutual consent rather than trying 3 laps of the resit loop before getting booted. Best and worst decisions of my life back then.

But now some 21 years after doing my A-Levels I doubt anyone would know what degree I do or don't have

I got a grant - they'd just brought in means testing, so £800 for a year. I also managed to get my employer at the time to sponsor me to do an MBA and just as I finished, they made me redundant, didn't have to pay my fees and got a 50% salary increase into my next job. 31 years after graduating, I was made redundant earlier this year after 16 years and just about to launch my own e-commerce business. In my day, only 20% of school-leavers went to uni, now it's 50% and yet I don't think the graduate job market has increased 2.5x.  There are still subjects such as science, engineering, software engineering where there are chronic skills shortages - a lot due to a large proportion of the current working population retiring in the next 10-15 years.

I didn't get a grant but I got fees paid and a cheap loan. Today's RUK fees/loan system is insane. I mean, financially disastrous, economically illiterate, 100% does no good for anyone insane, it's literally just a way of fudging the numbers on the national debt at the expense of these kids.

'I don’t think the graduate job market has increased 2.5x'

i dunno it seems you need a degree these days to be employed do to anything from watching job markets.

‘I don’t think the graduate job market has increased 2.5x’

i dunno it seems you need a degree these days to be employed do to anything from watching job markets.

Both can be true 😉 The job need for a degree vs the simplicity asking for grads cause they iz better like is interesting.

Hands up if you got a grant to go to uni ??

Me, too! I was lucky enough to go to uni when the education was free and you got a grant. The last year I was at uni was the year the student loan scheme was introduced so I had to pay off one thousand five hundred pounds or there abouts quite a few years later.

Though what I do now (education sector) has no direct relevance to what I studied (design) I couldn't have got into the sector without a degree so it wasn't waste of time. I really enjoyed my time at uni but in the current climat I'm not sure I would do it now.

Not only did I get a (small) grant, I got paid to go to uni - I was on the pre-cursor to this -  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_Technical_Undergraduate_Scheme

Cheers taxpayers.

it’s literally just a way of fudging the numbers on the national debt at the expense of these kids.

They have some odd accounting methods as well e.g.

Interest accrued on loans - which rises sharply in the chart above - counts as income for the government, even though this interest is simply increasing the outstanding balance on a given loan. A borrower might be well below the threshold at which repayments start, and unlikely to ever repay the principal, let alone the interest.

https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2018/07/18/1531923576000/Taking-education-into-account/

 IMO the problem completely lies with a lack of early career advise and work experience. Having multiple work experience weeks at GCSE/AS level, full time career advisers at school and greater advertisement of other options such as apprenticeships is the way forward, rather than an issue with the universities themselves who are only too happy to take the cash.

As someone has just graduated that sounds pretty spot on to me (graduating back in 1989) ...

Hands up if you got a grant to go to uni ??

Me, too! I was lucky enough to go to uni when the education was free and you got a grant. The last year I was at uni was the year the student loan scheme was introduced so I had to pay off one thousand five hundred pounds or there abouts quite a few years later.

I graduated in 89 and my brother in 91 .. Between myself and my brother the grant changed from "full grants" to partial... which at the time my bother got round by a sponsorship from British Aerospace.

I don't regret going but that was different times and a different era to now.

I'm not entirely certain I'd push the current 8yr old to go or to take any science or engineering degree.

My wife holds 2 Uni degrees, and as above, I don’t have one, but we agree, if he wants to go to Uni with our support, it needs to be to study for something that leads to a job, because the world doesn’t need another Michael Mouse Grad, you’re better off going backpacking for a year to ‘grow as a person’ and save yourself the 50k debt.

Where I work the ideal person I would like to employ would have a good Alevel in maths be able to rebuild an engine or other mechanical device and a desire to learn.

what the recruitment policy requires is a Masters or PhD in engineering and often gives us fluid mechanics or thermodynamics specialists which are no good for the role. They get bored or are just plain useless.

The VP of the group started as a technician but with current policy with going to night school he would not have been able to progress beyond the shop floor.

a degree does not equal talent. It can teach some good tools for learning and analysis but the modern HR system is often flawed. What might be a good degree course when you select it at age 16 (AS levels set up the degree) may not be fantastic at 22 when you join the workforce and even less so later on...

Hands up if you got a grant to go to uni ??

*waves*

First year was a 'full' grant, then phased out by year 4.

Four years of lectures in things like white water canoeing, hillwalking, skiing, caving, winter climbing.

What might be a good degree course when you select it at age 16 (AS levels set up the degree) may not be fantastic at 22 when you join the workforce and even less so later on…

Exactly and 5 or 10 yrs on.... even less so.

The main thing that uni has taught me is how to solve problems under immense time pressure and stress. The engineering is almost secondary, as unless you're going into a research/design role it's mostly common sense and experience over time, not the ability to memorize equations and solve very specific closed systems.

If a decent apprenticeship had been available to me when I was 18 (I did look), I probably would've done that, but I'm really glad I took this route and did the degree. Great job prospects, brilliant network, no ragrets.

disclaimer: living in Scotland means my tuition fees were covered (thanks taxpayers), and scholarships kept me fed and watered (thanks institutions), so typical student financial woes weren't as prevalent for me. My student loan is sat in a savings account waiting to be dumped on a house deposit in a couple of years...

Except in instances where a degree is fundamental to the work (eg. Medicine; Law; Engineering), people shouldn’t go to university unless they have a love for the subject they want to study. University is not a flipping production line for future workers. It is a place for exploring ideas, and the truths behind things.

I long for the day that we start according more respect for the trades and the arts and the people who dedicate themselves to excellence in their fields, and stop pushing bloody universities.

Says SaxonRider who has 5 degrees, and makes far less than probably many on here.

University is not a flipping production line for future workers. It is a place for exploring ideas, and the truths behind things.

Plenty of scope for developing the skills to learn and understand that are key for lots of jobs, train in skills that would be inefficient for small companies to teach. The social experiences broaden peoples horizons and increases the social networks people have. It pushes them out of their comfort zones.

It's way more than a place to be passionate about a subject.

Full grant here, wouldn't change a thing and certainly don't regret it - further ed has been fundamental to my career (scientific research) and I can't think of anything I'd have rather done.

To give an alternative side to the chemeng thing. I graduated a long time ago with a chemeng degree and it has given me and a lot of others a darned good "career". Very well rewarded versus the value the average engineer brings. A number of London based grads have gone into investment banking but that has been pretty short term for a lot of them.

Would I recommend an engineering degree now for someone going to uni? Not unless they're prepared to move to another (read "less developed") country.

The UK seems to be changing to a service based country. Head for vocational degrees in the service industry ... computer science, doctors or lawyers. Accountants will be a vanishing breed as software takes over that role. Engineering in the UK will get smaller and smaller with less and less "native" market for it as we lose every industry we've ever had.

Computers don't look like they'll take over law or medicine in the middle future and we'll need folk to fix the computers. Sad ... but that's what I see in the market.

I never did see the point in a non vocational degree. Surely the point of going to uni is to get a "better" job. Why pick a degree that doesn't have a job type associated with it? Mental.

In my run for world leader, one of my policies would be to fully fund degrees in proportion to the number of jobs we actually have for that degree. Unfortunately, that means there wouldn't be many fully funded places on TV production or language interpretation.

I graduated in 89

Me too.. after a couple of years doing A Levels (transferring Edu from the US to the UK system back then was might difficult..)

Full grant from Shropshire CC LEA. I had to have an interview too! Bit weird, I remember it well.. It went like this..

"why do you want to go to uni?"

"what course will you be taking, and why?"

"which Uni's have you chosen?"

"thank you for your time, you'll hear from us in due course"

A week later all was sorted and I had the summer months to go sailing...

I do remember distinctly the social depravity in the area that we moved back too. Ironbridge was still a foundry town, less so but there were still two big foundries in Coalbrookdale churning out manhole covers and gates etc. Up in Telford it was beginning to become an industry focal point for "emerging industries" and a load of big industry moved in and took hold of a mass unemployed workforce and paid them a pittance for their labours..

I thought to myself 'sod that" and thankfully my house tutor thought the same and pushed me into further Ed, glad he did but I'd already made my mind up that I didn't want to turn out like the kids at the collage I did my A Levels in, they just seemed to lack any motivation to do anything. It was quite depressing actually.. a whole generation wasted because of lack of opportunities..

Fatcha, and the Conservatives.. same then as now, except now you have to hold down a debt the size of a small european country if you choose Uni..

I really don't understand how the last generation will cope.

In the FT today;

Economists have found that being a contestant for eight weeks on Love Island can boost your lifetime earnings more than a degree from England's top universities.

Analysis by Frontier Economics, an economic consultancy, estimated that someone who appears on the show could expect to earn £1.1m from subsequent sponsorship and appearance fees compared with a lifetime average return of £815,000 from completing an undergraduate degree at Oxbridge. With the hit ITV2 show, featuring sun, sangria and sex on the east coast of Mallorca, Spain, reaching its climax on Monday, five Frontier economists spent two weeks demonstrating that celebrity pays more than scholarship.

I really don’t understand how the last generation will cope

With debts from education increasing the only way I can see it resolved is wage escalation for STEM like there is in the US and wage depression for everyone else.. or farm out the degree level jobs to immigrants or other countries

I missed out on student grants due to waiting until all my mates returned from uni to go. Did fine art. Then spent 16 years in shit jobs I hated until finally falling into a job that paid enough that student loan repayment deductions started happening. I think I was probably pretty close to falling back into the pit of despair university scraped me out of if I'd spent anymore time standing in a shithole factory next to dirty noisy injection moulding machines. Biggest regret of uni is somehow linking getting ****ted as much as possible with progress. To be fair I studied art, so anything goes in terms of inspiration, but it probably could have gone better I think. Just clueless. Never figured out what I wanted to do, either the options didn't exist for me or I was totally blind to them. Expecting an 18 year old to do so seems like a joke.

my degree took me out of my dead end hometown and gave me a foothold in the city I call home.

Professionally it hasn't really done anything for me, but for the above alone, totally worth it.

Some really weird narrow-minded comments here.

Why should degree choice always be linked to a job?  Does this mean everybody should only do a course that leads to a job even if they aren't interested in it?  Get a grip.  Jobs and money are not always the goal.  Do something you are interested in and want to learn about, move away from home make new friends and have new experiences.  THAT is the point of further education.

Completely agree Andy Kirk, but getting yourself into 30k+ worth of debt is maybe not the most cost effective way of doing that.

<div class="bbp-reply-author">bikebouy
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Fatcha, and the Conservatives.. same then as now, except now you have to hold down a debt the size of a small european country if you choose Uni..

Hold down being the operative word, because the current prediction is that only 23% of all students will repay their loans in full. That has a weird knockon effect that for the 77% that don't, there's no incentive to reduce their loan in any way- no reason to pay extra, no reason to avoid fees, or even to worry about missing repayments, or to worry about the ridiculous rise in interest rates, because all it does is change the amount that gets written off at the end.

Mindboggling truth is that the increase in tuition fees to the current £9000+ structure isn't just saddling students with debt, it costs the taxpayer more than the old £3000+ structure- because while total debt has gone up, we're actually going to recoup less after all costs and writeoffs.

(well, I say that- I can't prove it, because the government stopped publishing the data that would have proved it, 3 years ago at the exact point that it was predicted it'd go negative. Inexplicably)

You go to university for an education, not to get a job. I reckon anywho. I did neither, but did get shitfaced for four years. Which works for me.

Frontier economists spent two weeks demonstrating that celebrity pays more than scholarship.

Might get a bit crowded if 50% of school leavers go to love island. Might turn a little more battle royale.

I went to uni 22 years ago to do an HND in software engineering. I just didn't apply myself, had huge amounts of fun but fell into crap jobs after dropping out. I completely lost all my self discipline. I don't think the gap year working in a fast food chain helped. I've regretted not having the confidence to go back and finish my studies.

Anyhow my personal opinion is that degrees help massively and in fact are essential within certain fields. To achieve a certain level within some engineering companies you need to be a chartered engineer. You cannot be a chartered engineer without a degree.

So despite the costs I'm now studying a technology type degree with the OU. I'm trying to future proof myself. At the same time I'm starting up my own garden maintenance business. I've just completed a pesticide course and shall be doing an RHS Horticultural course too. Whilst continuing the OU degree. It's costing me a lot but I'm loving the freedom of working and learning when I want without rushing to go to the office and do work in a role I wasn't passionate about. If my business succeeds I'll still continue my degree. It may not be applicable to running a garden business but if my dream goes tits up then I have a back up.

Degrees do help to check that box when applying for jobs. Nearly all the civil service jobs I'd been looking at required a degree. Some jobs don't need degrees, i.e. Air Traffic Controller, Train Driver, bus driver and many others but, with a degree you'll be able to apply for those jobs and many, many others. Whether you'll get them or not is another matter but you'll be in the running more than those without. So long as it's STEM oriented.

Our receptionist has a degree in biology but there are simply not enough jobs available or to go around for all biology graduates so working as receptionist bring in income for now ...

I only went to Uni because I wanted to see the western world as my future was bleak in my home town.  I thought I could learn some new ideas to bring home to start my own, but then when I went home (after I graduated) I was "too advance" or ahead of of my time making me unemployable.  In those days the govt of my country was also focusing more on helping people with similar religion so chances of me surviving or doing well was pretty slim.

Yes, going to Uni is for education but a person cannot survive on education without a job.