To ask what you really think of apprenticeship s

Dd Got excellent a level grades and an offer to go to a good university. However she just didn’t want to go. She tried and failed to get a degree apprenticeship and failed so is doing a lower level one. She is earning very well and has already secured a promotion 6 months in. Unless you are rich or have to have a degree for your chosen job I just wouldn’t bother with university.

We have a lot of apprentices, from level 3 to degree apprenticeships, seems to work well.

In my previous job, I did a level 5 management apprenticeship, which was challenging mostly because my actual managers were not totally on board. I already have degrees in different disciplines.

You can not beat the practical experience of apprenticeship, you are in the workplace gaining valuable skills and making contacts , this is great for when you seek future employment.

I think they are the best options. Unless someone needs a specific degree for a specific job - like possibly a doctor.

Id strongly encourage my children to do them. Work and earn and eventually get a degree anyway without paying - no brainer.

Also with DS degree is over 5 years instead of 3 for the normal degree.
He is doing Dissertation atm

My friends husband is a construction company owner(only small), he did a bricklayer apprenticeship and so did most of his other trades. His site labourers are mainly uni graduates as can't find employment 🤷

DS's uni work has been fairly minimal so far, not huge demands and a lot of it he can do at weekends or they are given some time during the uni day. If they do need more time they can ask their boss if they can use some work time and that's generally fine.

Their final project is the one really big uni thing they do - but it's a work based project. It's something that genuinely needs to be done at work so they do it there but write it up for uni. A previous apprentice made a software control for a metal furnace for example.

You have an allocated amount of time per week to study, usually a full working day. So for an average full time worker you’d work 4 days and have 1 study day, where you’re expected to spend 7.5 hours doing this work. Depending on the apprenticeship role and degree etc there are government mandated “off the job hours” which is the minimum amount of time the employer has to give to study (the apprentice is still paid for these hours).

In reality you also need to do extra work during evenings/weekends (but I suppose this is similar to normal uni students too).

The thing I don’t understand about degree apprenticeships is when do you actually get the time to complete the required study for essays / projects etc?

Spareroom, Openrent, Airbnb are all options. There are lots of places with monthly rent all bills included which makes things very easy, we helped DS find somewhere and he's been there 18 months now.

It's really no worse than moving into halls and then having to quite quickly start thinking about who you're going to share a flat with for your second year - and having to share all rent and bills with them. I think it's easier actually. I haven't had to be guarantor for a start!

There wasn't really any support with finding housing though and some of the other apprentices just live at home and commute. DS loves living out though.

@treeaspenthe training is yes, but we have to pay them and lose them for the time they are at college. A 2 year apprenticeship for a mechanic would cost us £43,000, they are only with us 4 days a week. A trained mechanic costs us about £45,000 a year but they are bringing money in, hopefully more money than we are paying them. That's the whole point of our business. An apprentice isn't bringing money in, they aren't productive. As much as we would love to give people a great opportunity if we aren't making money the business will close eventually anyway.

But apprenticeships are either 95% or 100% funded by the government? It’s arguably a very small outlay to have a member of staff who is fully trained to your methods/standards who is likely to have a lot of loyalty to you

Some of them are really good. A lot of my friends who did them earn more than I do, DH did one and he earns more than a lot of people I know who just have degrees. There are some really shitty and exploitative ones, or at least there were 10 years ago when I was looking into it.

It all depends on what you want. I went to uni to do IR and quantitative methods, now I’m a maths tutor. I did my degree because I loved politics and IR and enjoyed learning in the college/university environment. I would love to go back and do another degree in later life if I can - I just like school I guess. DH is bright but struggled to learn in college and needed practical application for what he learned, he really needs a hands on approach so his apprenticeship was preferable for him. He was also very focused on earning money and a career while I was all about the pursuit of knowledge for the sake of it. It depends on the person.

Modern apprentices are very different from the 70/80’s. This route has overtaken my employers graduant program and the participants are doing really well.

My dd had a uni place due to start Sept 25 in accountancy. It was a 4 year course. In April 25 she decided she was not prepared to land herself with all the debt and wrote round a load of accountancy firms asking for an apprenticeship. She was accepted by a couple and started a few weeks later at one of them.
They are paying her minimum wage and her college fees. She attends college 1 day a week. It will take 5 years going this route but at the end she will be a fully chartered accountant and will have 5 years work experience under her belt.

We also have 4 apprentices where I work. Again fees fully paid, a degree at the end and years of work experience. Most importantly, no debt!

I think they are brilliant.

My nephew did a degree apprenticeship in marketing instead of taking up an offered university place at his local university. He decided that he did not want the debt at the end of the course and was a bit fed up of studying after his A levels.

At first he was on minimum wages although his remote study costs were covered. After a year he started to earn a decent salary and was promoted a couple of times once his studying was finished. He is now 23 and has changed jobs and earns over £60,000 a year, he has no debt and is saving hard to buy a house very soon.

I am so proud of him for going against the trend, most of his friends went to university and initially his parents put pressure on him to take a gap year and then go. I think he does regret slightly not going travelling like others did but he can afford to go on lovely holidays!

I don’t think your friends know what degree apprenticeships are.

My views on them? They are great but like gold dust.

My views on non-degree apprenticeships-again, there are not nearly enough of them and the pupils that may have once chosen them (less academic), can’t get on them as they don’t have maths or English GCSE so can’t be accepted with the appropriate funding.

My views on degrees-what are we doing to our kids that means they are starting working life with £50k of debt and unable to get a job? The debt is going up £3k a year in interest before they are earning a penny.

Exactly this. Degree apprenticeships are tough - working alongside the study, so in some ways are more of an achievement than a regular degree. And when her peers graduate, they will only have a degree. She will also have a ton of work experience. They really don’t know what they are talking about.

This

a degree apprenticeship really is the jackpot of post school opportunities. A degree for the cost of registration, a couple hundred pounds, starting work as a new graduate but with three or four years working experience under your belt puts you ahead of anyone who has just gone the university route.

the only downside is the really fierce competition to secure a place on a degree apprenticeship.

Anyone rubbishing apprenticeships is likely thinking of the kind which do not include external qualifications.

So, when my son decided he wanted to do an apprenticeship, we said he should choose the right one from any offers, anywherr in the country, and we would pay his rent as we had paid his DSs rent during University.

He applied to 3 (I think). The applications and process was long and each application had to be tailored which he found challenging as hes dyslexic. But he did it.

One he got nowhere with. One they said he had got through to the assessment centre and wait for a date, but the next contact was 6 months later when they said they had no places left. The third he went all the way.

When the letter arrived there was no help for accommodation. He looked on spareroom, found some professional houseshares (because he wasnt exempt for CT) and we visited them as it was 4 hours from home. He picked one that wasnt available until 7 days after he started but he really gelled with the live-in owner, so he booked a hotel for 7 days to make up the difference.

He says when we dropped him at the hotel it was the hardest day of his life.

But, 10 years on, hes still living in the area - in his own house now and with his own lodger! So, it was an experience that has come around on itself!

As others say, it appears some may offer accommodation. Just treat every apprenticeship is its own and make sure your young adult researches stuff like this as they all differ.

Ultimately, we didnt need to pay his rent as the pay for that particular offer was very good.

My ds has been doing a degree apprenticeship for the last 5 years and will graduate in a few months. He has thrived and earning good money.
He didnt go the normal route. He started as a temp, got offered a job then later offered the apprenticeship.

That’s a good point about locations and accommodation. At 18 (17 when I applied to uni as I’m Scottish) I would not have been ready to just find a random houseshare on gumtree or whatever.
Do degree apprenticeships rely on the parents living somewhere near the jobs? Or is there support to find housing? Private renting is quite a minefield.

The main downsides I saw were...

The competitive ones have a rigourous assessment process. Thats not for everyone. I think my son was OK because he had no expectations given his GCSEs (he was literally on their minimum requirements for that) but because he was so, genuinely, passionate about the subject he had so much to talk about and that, in itself, made interviews more like conversations, and helped him relax. I think anyone trying to "game" a system.would find it very hard to keep that up for such a long period under different assessments.

Then you have the independence needed to source accommodation on your own. The apron strings really are cut. Some are ready for that at 18 but many are not. University and their support services and guaranteed accommodation offers are a choice for some.

Final.point - the Uni and degree content isnt your choice. If it matters to you to have a certain Uni on your CV forever or to do a particular course or maybe have some flexibility (like joint honours etc) - then Uni is the right choice.

My DSs degree is not a Russell Group level but of course hes unlikely to have gone to a RG with his academics anyway. Those pulling of A stars etc may well have more to consider.