Why Uni / no jobs ?

@ainawatson Yes but the state paid for all of that dream I suspect. It’s dream in now! Most students don’t study for a luxurious 9 years and most don’t become academics. Most of not all want to work, not be perennial students proving something to themselves.

My DC is going to University partly because the jobs market is so awful but mainly because the career he needs to go into will probably need a degree. It's hardly as if kids who leave school at 18 are falling into jobs. Some of my DC's friends aren't going to University. Most of them have applied for 100's of jobs, mostly in retail and just aren't getting them. A couple of his friends decided to go along the apprenticeship route and again are applying and applying for apprenticeships and not getting them because there are 100's of applications for each one. Some have applied for L2 and 3 apprenticeships. Many businesses have a recruitment freeze and that is affecting apprenticeships too. 18 year olds today will not have a triple locked State pension and won't be able to retire until they are in their 70's. University is a soft landing into adulthood, a great experience and at the end of it, graduates still have lower unemployment rates, higher pay and lower rates of poor mental and physical health.

This is beautiful to read. I love that you got to do uni purely for the love of learning and challenging yourself, not just for a job. A 9 year academic journey sounds like a dream. If you could go back, what subject would you dive into first?

@CreativeGreen It is not a statement at all. You didn’t need to go to university to teach, be an accountant, or a nurse. It certainly said “snob” to the working class, and definitely “bettering yourself” was a disloyal crime!

My DH was a “first in family” in the 70s and believe you me, it was a problem for his dad in the factory he worked in. Jibes of “getting above yourself” and “you won’t be associating with the likes of us soon” were oft repeated! As it was for DM who worked in a factory when my Dsis got all her A levels at AAA. Unfortunately it was in the local newspaper! People working in factories were soon put in their place by fellow workers. So you certainly didn’t boast. You probably hid!

I don't think it makes sense to say that boasting 'first in family' has 'snob value' - surely your child being the first in your family to go to university is actually quite a clear statement about your family background?

But yeah, why would anyone want to .... know anything? What's the point of reading things, or thinking about them, acquiring knowledge, thinking and arguing at a high level?

What a depressing thread.

When I went to uni (1980s/90s) it was a very different experience. I was an older student so I wanted the bits of paper to prove how smart I was. Also the challenge of pitting my wits against clever people. I never considered a job outside academia after my first year at uni because I realised I was a born academic. My 9 year trip through the higher education system was among the happiest and most carefree of my life when I look back on it. If I could travel back I would do it all again.

@MeetMeOnTheCorner totally agree with all you've said there. Jobs is the driver and there is no incentive to hire and train young people - they cost the same as older, experienced people.

@Tunaboona What base did China start from though? There’s plenty of Chinese students still coming here though. Do they have 36% of school leavers going to university?

Surely the issue is jobs. We are struggling with jobs because we tax them too highly. We don’t encourage business and believe successful businesses are grabby, rip off their workers and should be taxed to oblivion. I rather suspect China doesn’t think like this.

i wonder what the split between humanities and STEM subjects studied at Chinese universities is. A quick AI query suggests STEM is heavily favoured and government resources have been redirected in recent years to place even more emphasis on STEM subjects with arts graduates often taking up coding/data analysis/dual degrees to access better paying jobs. AI though so may lack nuance.

It's also worth noting that while the UK is currently being disparaging about higher education, the rest of the world isn't. China is building universities and education is seen as the only thing that matters. I do worry about the future of the UK in terms of our traditional position as knowledge leaders, great innovators etc.

@ainawatson It is not the primary destination for 18 year olds. Only around 36% go. Degree apprenticeships are hugely difficult to secure but lower level ones are possible. The big issue is dc not knowing what career they want. I do think many are unrealistic in career aims too. I would like to see more apprenticeships though but in a rural area, they will inevitably be limited and who pays the cost of leaving home when the salary is low and there’s no loan? For many there are very few apprenticeships within reach.

That's a great breakdown, particularly on the lack of availability for smaller firms. Until degree apprenticeships become as accessible as UCAS applications, do you think uni will just remain the primary option by default?

In many cases, their parents were the first in the family to go. For great grandparents and even grandparents, it was rare to go to uni unless you were rich or very bright.
It became expected, and it's just now that we're questioning awful attitudes like whether you'll be seen as "mustn't be bright if they didn't go to uni".

When the job market opens up, and eventually it will, having post secondary education on your resume certainly won’t hurt.
If you’re able to access post secondary while living at home, the costs are reasonable.

@BigMoandtheEStreet11 It’s an issue! The French have a heirarchy of universities and dc do leave home for the grande Ecoles. It’s less of an issue if you maintain a variety of HE too. We haven’t but Germany does. You cannot compare really. Here, plenty don’t live anywhere near a good university. Only a low rated one. What then?

@SulkingInTheCatio Yes that’s definitely part of the issue. Moving the issue three or four years into the future looks attractive. Plus dc have a better idea of what they want.

There’s few jobs fullstop never mind graduate jobs. Maybe for some the choice is unemployment or university.

Broadening horizons, meeting different types of people, stepping stone to adulthood, being degree educated, living somewhere new, all sorts of experiences. We come from a very small town and look at the debt as a graduate tax.

In a lot of other countries it’s more common to stay home while studying so less debt from living expenses and if all your school friends are doing the same thing then they are still around. I don’t know how this works on these countries if there isn’t a good place to study within communing distance though as it can’t be an option for everyone ie rural area/no uni/no transport/crap local uni/ok local uni but particular course is crap.

The graduate job market is dire, the unskilled 18 yo job market is arguably worse.

@Badbadbunny There has been a huge problem caused by the old colleges of HE and teacher training colleges becoming unis. They barely offered degrees until 1992 and when they did they were not awarded by them. They were far more geared towards vocational training.

Colleges of FE now offer the relatively low level courses and many are for trades and linked to apprenticeships. The huge gap is the middle ground below degree level, and the polys used to offer these - HND. Now they are all degrees because they are universities. I’d like to see far more HE courses, not degrees, at the non ex poly unis. So places like Bucks New, Northampton, St Mary’s Twickenham and similar should have a much wider range of courses below degree level. I think the polys probably have to stay as unis but we definitely have too many of them.

lifting the cap on uni places in 2013/14 also helped create this problem. Courses were invented and expanded to meet the demand and too many were not good enough.

Nail on the head. Especially how all the courses that used to be offered by colleges and Polys have been turned into degrees, with Polys converted into Unis and Colleges converted into 16-18 training hubs. A massive vacuum left behind for adults wanting a career change or anyone wanting to learn vocational/trades/manual/technical subjects.

I also think there's a lot of "snob" value about parents wanting their kids to go to Uni, i.e. to boast "first in the family" etc. And by the same token, they don't want their little darlings to come home from work with dirty hands/clothes in the way that, say, a joiner, builder or plumber will come home.

But also, we've now had a few decades where you "Need" a degree to get jobs that previously didn't i.e. nursing, police, teachers, social workers, etc. etc., so there's a "fear factor" among parents that options are limited without a degree.

Finally, decent apprenticeship schemes are still too few and far between. Smaller firms and one man bands simply don't bother with them due to the cost, hassle, etc. and plenty of places (especially out in the regions) simply don't have big employers, so no firms offering apprenticeships. It's OK if you live somewhere near a big BNFL or BAE site or in a city with lots of offices, but in lots of places, there's neither, so moving away to Uni is the only viable option for a decent education.

It seems some dc really don’t understand how student loans work and have not familiarized themselves on how and when they are repaid. Many are never repaid.

DC go because they don’t know what they want for a job. Many don’t want the daily grind at 18. Plenty need degrees for career aspirations. Thousands are doing practical degrees that were never degrees 30 years ago but now they are because the colleges of HE are now universities. Vast numbers of vocational courses are now degrees but probably don’t need to be but dc are forced to do them. Dc grow up, negotiate a life away from home and have time to build a cv but degree quality and university do matter. Some degrees like performing arts ones are not great for employment prospects.

It mostly comes down to habit and fear—for years we were told a degree was the only path to a decent job, so parents still view it as the default "safe" option.Do you think degree apprenticeships will eventually replace the traditional uni route, or is the "uni experience" just too deeply ingrained?