To think people are overeducated in the UK?

Spend a week working with the public, then say that with a straight face.

Haha no. Since education comes with so much debt id say there is an under education issue. People do decide not to get a degree due to cost.

I have gotten decent jobs with no degree, ahead of candidates with degrees and masters, due to extensive experience and ability to sell myself in interview, oh and good references.

He will find something eventually.

That's a fair point. It's rare that I need to step outside my social bubble of graduate, professional friends and their grammar school, graduate children. It's so easy to assume the majority of the UK are very similar but it's actually very far from it. Depressingly so.

Exactly this.

I don’t think there is any such thing as too much education.

I think a lot of people on this thread exist in a bubble of educated intelligent people.

The average national IQ is around 100. If you have ever met anyone with an IQ of around 100, you will realise that they will struggle with decent GCSE grades, let alone further study.

Only 32% of the country have an IQ above 115 which will not get you anywhere near a decent STEM degree.

Realistically, people should be appropriate educated, which would mean far fewer at uni and far more learning job skills.

I expect that they need the sort of experience that an 18 year old is unlikely to have, though?

I’m not particularly saying that, thought.
OP mentioned degrees in terms of being useless and I just don’t think that’s true.

plenty of careers don’t require a degree. And there are lots of other courses.

On the contrary, I think people are woefully UNDER educated. If they weren't, for example, the Brexit mess wouldn't have happened and Reform wouldn't get a single vote.

I kind of agree with the OP.

The problem is we give degrees to people who are, in any meaningful sense of the word, not graduate material.

The dumbing down of courses and grade inflation has made many degrees not worth the paper that they are written on.

Life experience, ‘adulting’ and friendships can all take place in the workplace.

I think this mass participation in university has lowered GDP and, at the same time, massively decreased social mobility as there aren’t the funds to support the truly academic who are poor but would really benefit from uni.

I don’t get why you’re angry tbh. Someone older and more experienced in life got the job. What does their level of education have to do with it?

Sounds like the OP is jealous of people that have worked hard to broaden their minds and skill sets.

Why? I don't know about Lidl but I do know premier inn, McDonald's and asda there's no need to be degree educated to get management jobs

oooh that's what my teen wants to do (actually illustration first and then animation!!)

What's even worse is when people with masters and PhDs can't even get a job in Lidl because they are overqualified and it is assumed that they will move on asap, but there also aren't the "correct" subject-specific jobs available......in that circumstance a postgrad actually makes it harder to find work, not easier.

You can never be overeducated.

you anger is misplaced.

That's just what happens when the job market is tough. I finished my PhD in 2008 at the height of the crash. No one was hiring in science then, and those that were had many applicants who were highly experienced and qualified. I was out of work for 6 months before I found something. I do think experience absolutely trumps education after a certain point, so always encourage younger people to work or volunteer - almost anything, it's nice if it's relevant but honestly knowing you can be trusted to turn up on time and be nice to your colleagues goes a long way too!

I know someone with a biology degree from Oxford who works in a grocery shop. Applied for loads of grad jobs, got rejected. What do you suggest people do in that position? They aren’t “taking” jobs from your dc, they are doing the best they can in a broken country.

Actually I know a lot of grocery shop employees and they are mainly very capable people indeed.

We aren’t over educating, we have stifled job opportunities.

It’s not that we’re over educating people, more that the standards aren’t high enough. Plenty of people with degrees, and post-graduate degrees, are breathtakingly ignorant and inarticulate. I have known people with masters degrees who can barely string a sentence together. I also knew a man with a PhD, who lectured in psychology at a polytechnic. His ignorance about almost everything outside of his field astonished me. He had never heard of the poet John Milton, for example. Fair enough if you don’t want to read Paradise Lost, but he had never even heard of him!

@Watdidusay Nobody sent me to university - it was a choice I made.
You sound horrendously patronising to be honest. Why do I need the “opportunity to advance”?
And maybe some have chosen retail for reasons that suit them.
Personally, it now fits with my life with a young family. Yes, I could go and work longer hours in what I’m guessing you would think of as a “proper job”, and pay out for more childcare and travel to allow me to do it. But I currently walk 20 mins to work after dropping my DC off, walk 20 mins back, get to spend more time with my family. Sometimes money and career aren’t everything

In answer to your thread title: looking at the majority of Reform voters and their reasons for voting Reform, I'd say they're not educated enough. More seriously though, I don't think people are overeducated (no such thing). I think some people have meaningless paper qualifications which often don't bear any correlation to "education" (not saying this applies to the woman you're talking about).

The most crucial element, though, is that formal education isn't just or necessarily a means to a well-paid job. This isn't even a lie this or that government, or society in general, has sold people. There's very little causation between levels of education and being well paid, outside of professional jobs. Some of the richest people in the country left school at 16 or 18 and have no university degree. The point of education, proper education, is to know more and have better thinking skills. This is vital for ALL aspects of life, not just getting and keeping a job. The right education can certainly lead to prosperity, but bullshit education can and generally does lead to the opposite.

Don't be angry on behalf of your son. Teach him to think critically about how he's going to get from where he is now to where he wants to be by his mid-20s. It's not about PhDs or degrees, necessarily

Last time I checked the UK's national average literacy levels were below Cuba's, so over education is hardly the problem.

It's the wrong education that's the problem. Far too many students doing non-marketable degrees but still fully expecting to walk into a £35K a year graduate role. One of DD's friends achieved 3 Cs at A Level and studied Fashion & Business Administration. Not surprisingly, she hasn't bagged a role at Vogue and has been working at Costa since graduating 2 years ago.

There are only a very limited number of graduate jobs and they'll go to the brightest applicants who studied the most rigorous courses at the reputable universities. Just like they always have.

I agree, I have a business but used to be an internal recruitment manager/HR .there’s an awful lot of parental pressure to go too, particularly if you’ve paid a bomb for your kids education , 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 . When I think about when I left school late 70s - I went to work in a bank, rule was 5 o levels A-C , ( and I was 16) my friend went to work Asa tracer atan architects- same requirements, another went as office admin in a big manufacturing plant - same, another as a junior payroll and HR assistant at the coal board as it was - same . Several went into nursing - Hence even though I went to grammar school at least 70% left at 16 straight into jobs- the remaining 30% were all aiming at doctors, scientists, lawyers , teaching etc- so it’s bit of a viscious circle unless you can get a good apprenticeship at 16 or 18 -yrs many do see it as a ‘fun doss ‘ to avoid work especially if they have parents dolling them out cash, plenty do it because many job options these days are limited without a degree

The problem is not enough jobs. Why? Because this government doesn't understand where jobs really come from. They don't come from 'government job creation schemes'; they come from entrepreneurs taking risks and starting businesses. If the government keeps taxing them and doesn't offer any support, they just won't happen.

It depends on the degree. Having a degree in a ridiculous subject doesn't make you any more employable than the next chump.

Exactly.😂