To think people are overeducated in the UK?

"Are people in the UK overeducated?"

<reads AIBU>

"Nope"

So you think somebody with a lot of qualifications should turn down a job offer when they need to earn so that your daughter can get a job. Do you think she should be in this management position? As the mum you refer to has found out, adult life is brutal. Your precious kid needs to learn this as well.

You sound like so many of my friends! Their teenage kids can't get the kind of jobs we took for granted, which is a shame as it helps your development (probably the first time you mingle with people older than you, learning skills which are useful in later life, the pride of being able to pay for your own stuff etc).
It is ridiculous that we now expect so many kids to get deep in debt and then have no job when they've done everything we told them to. Not everyone should need a degree.
And then you get the people who say anyone without a job is just lazy.

I don’t have the aptitude or the interest. I’d be miserable working as a plumber or gas fitter.

I also wonder how great life is going to be for tradespeople when the trades are deluged by new entrants. They aren’t going to be able to command the rates they do now with many more of them to go around.

So, I look forward to the smug MN thread a few years from now when young people who have worked hard to qualify in a trade are mocked for thinking it would get them a decent standard of living when of course we all know plumbers are ten a penny.

AIBU to think we are completely over educating people in this country now?

No. Education is a good thing. You might not value it but there is a lot of evidence that shows the benefits of having an educated population.

Feeling angry I think as DS (18) tried so hard over the summer to get a job like this but am finding out now they are all being taken up by people with lots of degrees!

All of the jobs? C'mon you know that's not true.

"I am not criticising the mother for taking that job. I think good for her and it seems to be working for her for the time being (she was a regional director in a multinational company)."

And Lidl also have regional directors and are a multinational company.
She could easily be on a managerial training path.
Part of their grad programme is working the tills, working the stock, managing the floor. They make sure who is at the top, knows what its like on the floor.
You are seriously judging her here and you have no clue what her plan/job is, simply that she was on the shop floor.

How did you move into gardening, @Fibrous? Agree entirely that a PhD isn't a life sentence.

I don’t think over education is the whole problem.
When I was 18 (2009) all my friends still in education had shop jobs. These were either in big supermarkets or in shopping malls. At that time people didn’t really trust online shopping and self checkouts weren’t a thing. Obviously this has completely changed and as a result there isn’t the same volume of jobs in retail anymore.
At the same time my generation felt pushed to pursue higher education (I have a history degree I’m still paying for but have never really used).
We can now throw AI and other tech advances into the mix which is reducing entry level jobs across all sectors.

In my opinion, your son not easily getting a shop job is a result of over a decade of people buying from Amazon, returning countless online orders, using self checkouts and relying on Chat GPT. Demand for humans is down so there will be over qualified people filling these roles.

So you get these middle class kids of lawyers and bankers who fund them to do their Ivory Tower phd in pointless subjects like the social implications of the architecture of a long demolished prison. They get their PhD and think they are going to be the next Professor Yaffle-Plum of Oxford University - but they can't get a job, mummy and daddy assumed they would get a job so stop funding them and reality bites so they go off to train to be a solicitor or a shop steward or something boring and conventional that actually pays an income - having wasted a lot of time and othere people's money doing a PhD that is valueless both to themselves and the wider pool of human knowledge.

Unnecessarily condescending. I know the phd subject has been chosen to express how esoterically pointless it is, but it doesn’t sound pointless to me in terms of an original academic contribution, going on to being a solicitor or intellectual development. I went down the law conversion route (not after an PhD, mind) and the skills I had learned studying humanities earlier have been very transferable.

And if you really want a chance at being the next ‘Professor Yaffle-Plum’ (haw haw) - and somebody is going to be - you presumably do need to do the PhD.

Yes, there is an oversupply of specialist academic qualifications to related careers and people need to make decisions taking into account the difficult economy as well as their personal interests, but we can talk about all that without mocking achievements and aspirations.

As someone who grew up in another country, and who now has children in the UK education system.. no. We absolutely do not over educate people. If anything, quite the opposite.

Tbf I don’t necessarily think having a degree will improve your chances of an unskilled job. There is a thing as being over qualified. If I was hiring for a supermarket job I’d probably be after a good communicator, good social skills, makes eye contact etc. I would possibly want someone who’d be reliable and willing to work unsociable hours and definitely not somebody who I’m likely to have to replace in 6 months. If someone had a degree I’d be worried they’d be off at the first opportunity. When I was young I worked in a supermarket and so did many students. Back then they were crying out for people to work weekends because the full time staff weren’t contracted to do so. Now most retail employees are expected to work if not part of every weekend definitely every other weekend.

Jobs taken up by people you don’t think deserve them such as mothers who need to provide for their children?! How does your 18 year old deserve it more?

Part of society wants people to be knowledagable, yet society also needs workers , but it seems some think the more educated you are the more youll want to do better rather than a steady role etc

The thing about having a high level of education is that you (are supposed to) have more choices. That's why people do more qualifications.

You can choose to work in Lidl if you want to even with a PhD. Its not reserved for the people who aren't qualified to do anything else.

There are less choices with less qualifications.

I don't think someone with a PhD is more qualified to be a mechanic than a qualified mechanic. Which is why skills and skills based training are also valuable.

What's not valuable is having no skills or qualifications, and expecting to still have preferred access to parts of the job market. As soon as there's a job shortage you have huge competition.

I do think however a really big issue was companies using ‘degree’ as the filter to get in at all, when an awful lot of jobs don’t really need it

I followed much the same path as you did, @Crikeyalmighty - similar age too - and defninitely agree with this

I can sort of see why they did it, in that it was once an easy way to sift out complete no-hopers, but even that no longer works now numerous degrees have become devalued and some leading employers disregard those from the lowest ranking Unis

IMO it also doesn't help that fees mean too many feel they're "buying a degree" rather than the tuition which hopefully leads to one. Add grade inflation driven by the desire to attract even more fees and you've got a perfect storm

Not everyone can learn trades!

Not everyone is suited to trades though. I can guarantee I’d have been shit at being a plumber/electrician etc!

What is the PhD in? Similarly, a masters in, say, sociology is worth a lot less than 2 year's of plumbing experience. etc.

Going to Uni has become 'the norm' now almost the same as going on your first trip to Ibiza with your pals. Of course we need people with degrees for certain roles but when I see youngsters starting at my firm (bog standard employer nowt special) with degrees in Media Studies for example, I do think what was the point. But they had a great time just a pity they have debt (not that they'll end up paying it back). We need to be encouraging people to learn trades instead of telling them all they should go to Uni.

Whilst I agree but didn’t want to phrase it that way - you can’t discount people like my highly educated great uncle(89 ) who isa telegraph reading utter snob and a total miser too - lives in a hovel - he hasa bee in his bonnet about anyone non British , unless they are rich and is all for stuffing his money away outside of any EU reforms - and posh snakeoilsakesnen like Farage are right up his street, as he does like a bit of cap doffing — sadly there are a fair old few of his ilk , not undereducated on paper and they would vote Brexit and Reform

Lidl are an excellent employer. They run a really sought after graduate programme where I live, a very well paid one, which in itself is unusual. It also offers further in house development education along with travel opportunities. If you can get in the door, on any level, they are VERY tough to get into even as a shop manager, then you could have a very well paid career for a long time.
In the degree my dd did, ldl graduate programme was up there with the big 4 for prestige programmes.
If your friend has that much of a degree, expect to see her as a much higher up area manager with in the year.

Clearly not overeducated. There are a lot of problems, overeducation isn't one of them!

They can, you’re right. But I assume highly educated people can string a sentence together or construct basic sentences. They would know the difference between there, their, they’re. Or are / our. Or two, to, too. I have just had to post something on a local Facebook page and the responses are just unbelievable from adults that barely make sense. No one can spell, everyone swears, some people are so thick they have missed the point entirely.

I don’t think the UK has a problem with too many highly educated people. It has a problem with tens of millions being completely sub standard when it comes to a basic level of knowledge required to live and work and interact with other humans.

The Conservatives engineered the change from polytechnics to universities.

I think I agree with you though the intelligence rating makes me a bit uncomfortable because there are other sorts of intelligence like emotional intelligence which are just as important, if not more important than bald intelligence.
On your main point though, I agree. It was Labour who started the change in education, encouraging polytechnics to become universities, a well meaning change which it was thought would mean over 50% of school students would earn a degree.
However, a well educated workforce has to have jobs to match and there was much dismay in industry as apprenticeships disappeared and people began to speak of degrees being needed for every job including service level jobs like cleaning!!
In my life, I've heard people over and over again lauding Germany which has excellent technical education and, I think, pupils are directed into the educational attainment stream which will best suit them.
Of course, good old Britain with its class snobbery also produced a situation where most pupils, even intelligent ones, failed the 11+ and were then directed into what were thought of as sink schools, so grammar schools got faded out in preference for comprehensives which failed to do the job of educating all according to ability.
In Oxford, it's common for people with PhDs to work as library assistants or academic support and admin roles because the city is crowded out with elite graduates, it's a city which mirrors the national situation.