AIBU to feel that some parents just want their children at Uni even if its a BS degree

FFS, opinions like this drive me nuts! What knowledge to you have of the current grad labour market? What measure do you use to determine value? What does graduate success look like to you? Salary? Job title? Perceived status?
this is ill informed and incredibly condescending. I hope your own children receive expert advice when considering their future pathways and not just your ‘opinion’!

Bachelor's in Business Administration.
Speak 4 languages and learn 2 more. Plus I'm now doing coding courses on a long run. Are you calling us waste of time? Plus I studied back home. And educational system there is more intense than in UK. Plus I assume you can only speak English?

And drama school would probably be excellent training for the public speaking bits of that job

What jobs hire these magically ‘highly knowledgeable and intelligent’ 16-year-olds?

Maybe the OP has access to super secret labour market information that the rest of us don't know about.....

My goodness you come across as "working class but worthy" horrible expression but it does sum up your attitude that education is very linear. How boring if people only studied "useful" subjects. I know a couple of very successful (if you measure success by wealth) barristers that went to drama school. Would hate to sit next to you at a dinner party, so dull when all one knows about is work.

I didn't think of that. They might be too "out there" a concept to be real degrees for OP. Guess they'll just have to suffer.

Plus she would almost certainly interrupt the first session to ask how much her therapist earned, and to compare him/her unfavourably with her own magic 16 year olds.

But would a counselling and psychotherapy degree, even BACP-accredited, fall under the OP’s approved list of degrees?

What jobs hire these magically ‘highly knowledgeable and intelligent’ 16-year-olds?

I'm sorry you're not getting the attention you want at home and that the only way you can feel things is to put others down. Maybe you should talk to someone about that.

If she’s making hundreds on one tattoo I imagine she’s also paying quite a bit of tax and student loan repayments (if she had a student loan and it hasn’t already been repaid)

When they were 30, the two in IT and guess what, by then they had their own property, no uni debts and when they went to the next level

I did humanities and language A levels, and had a flat at 27 and no university debts. Admittedly I studied at a time when tuition fees were free and student loans were about £500 a year, but it's totally ridiculous to say that you have to study a STEM subject to be a functioning member of society. Any degree is useful, and any work experience is useful. The onus is on employers to recognise transferable skills (and give people training, rather than expecting schools, universities and other employers to have done it for them). Clearly if you want to study medicine you need a science background, but I suspect most people could do a data science role with the right training.

What an unpleasant and snobbish post.
Higher education is about so much more than future earnings and social standing.
I highly valued the experience of studying for one of your 'BS' degrees. It taught me how to learn, critique source materials, develop independence in a safe environment, organise my thoughts and so much more. It has stood me in good stead in a range of job unrelated to my degree.
And I had a lovely three years socialising with wonderful people, some of whom are still friends!

I think it's safe to say that ship has sailed (and was never there in the first place!)

You seem to view education merely as a tool for getting a job. What about about a fundamental love of learning?

She didn't set out to do it, end of.

She could have done that without a degree. What a load of bollocks, bet she's not paying her degree loan back, or has no intentions of doing so!

My little brother never ended up with a degree but has a great job with a multinational. But that would be uncommon. Most jobs require a degree to get in the door rightly or wrongly. And I totally agree with PPS that spoke about the learning experience that college allows. I went abroad for a year as part of my degree and it really was the making of me. It meant I was able to leave home after my degree with some degree of confidence.

To a certain extent a degree is only as good as the student and sometimes the institution.

Art degrees are more about the university you end up in as it’s the social value, alumni and contacts that can make a difference.

Same with other degrees.

I don’t think you need a degree today, but if you choose not to have one then you better either build a portfolio, so relevant work experience or go into an apprentice or training.

Personally I would love a refund from my degree - I did business studies - it got me on the career ladder way back when as I did well.

I can't help but think @DistinguishedSocialCommentator that you might benefit from reading beyond the Daily Mail, especially when it comes to Higher Education.

Another pp has already linked this Prospects Luminate report but here it is again. Worth a read through,lots of graphics. Media Studies covered on page 29.

https://graduatemarkettrends.cdn.prismic.io/graduatemarkettrends/bb6dc6da-0786-4c17-aa74-af4607d20bb0_what-do-graduates-do-2324.pdf

It is of course just a breakdown of the mass of data in the Graduates Outcomes Survey. This is WonkHE's take on it https://wonkhe.com/blogs/hesa-spring-2023-graduate-outcomes/

The IFS have a number of pertinent recent reports:

The impact of undergraduate degrees on lifetime earnings : https://ifs.org.uk/sites/default/files/output_url_files/R167-The-impact-of-undergraduate-degrees-on-lifetime-earnings.pdf

How much does it pay to get good grades at university?
https://ifs.org.uk/sites/default/files/output_url_files/How-much-does-it-pay-to-get-good-grades-at-university.pdf

London calling? Higher education, geographical mobility and early-career earnings
https://ifs.org.uk/sites/default/files/output_url_files/Higher-education-geographical-mobility-and-early-career-earnings.pdf

Moving on from the IFS the High Fliers Graduate Market report https://www.highfliers.co.uk/download/2023/graduate_market/GMReport23.pdf

The workings of Student Finance are covered quite well by a range of House of Commons Library Reports. For example
Student finance in England: How much do graduates pay back? https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/student-finance-in-england-how-much-do-graduates-pay-back/
and more general ones such as this on Higher education student numbers https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7857/

HEPI - the Higher Education Policy Institute - has a range of reports and blogs https://www.hepi.ac.uk/

Whilst not specific to students as you enjoy referencing London and largely denigrating anywhere else a more balanced summary picture is provided by Centre for Cities : Cities Outlook 2024 https://www.centreforcities.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Cities-Outlook-2024.pdf

If I had a free pass, I'd love to do a politics degree. It'd be fascinating.

😂😂😂