Does going to university make you middle class?

[PrincessGraceKelly]

I feel a bit nervous about starting this discussion () as I know threads on social class can get a bit heated but I find it all fascinating from a sociological perspective.

When I was studying A-levels one of our tutors told the class that graduating from university makes you middle class.

Do you agree?

I don't think that going to university makes you a different social class per se, however I have found that going to university has changed me a lot, more than I expected it to. I grew up working class. We were on benefits, lived in a council house, entitled to free school meals, etc. I went to a secondary school where getting good grades was something to be embarrassed about and even considering revising for your GCSEs meant you were a geek. However I did revise and went on to university. I have been studying at university for the last five years. I did my undergraduate degree, followed by a master's and now a PhD. When I first started at university I found it very daunting and definitely experienced a bit of a culture shock. Nearly everyone in my halls of residence had been to private school and seemed to know each other already because of going to the same school or indirectly e.g. a friend of a friend. However I soon settled in and adjusted and my confidence grew. Now I never really think about it when with my peers.

No.

If you are working class it just makes you more educated.

No.

I think a combination of uni and particular life/career choices can, but it’s not automatic. Same as some very middle class/posh people didn’t do a degree but are still middle class/posh.

No.

It used to, yes.

Not any more!

No.

@RJnomore1 @DrewByMann @iften

It is quite strange

When I was a teenager I knew I was working class and it influenced lots of things - my attitude to school, how I dressed, the music I listened to, how I spoke, who I was friends with. However it only influenced me that way because at school I had to display those markers in order to fit in.

Now I have spent 5 pretty formative years surrounded by a whole different subset of people and my tastes in everything have naturally shifted such that I feel like my teenage self was a completely different person.

However social class is so rigid and predetermined that none of those influences and choices that I made as a young adult make any difference and all that matters is the family situation I was born in?

I don’t really understand the class rules/levels tbh. I’m not English so it’s not really a thing I was brought up with or have heard discussed outside of MN. Do the classes even exist anymore? Or maybe the names need changed? Working class implies you work. But I know from MN that lots of people who are considered middle class work so

I rarely hear mention of upper class. Does that not exist anymore? It’s always working and middle that is discussed here.

Well I have a dc at uni and I don't think she'll magically make them change from being working class.
Maybe choice of degree might, but mine (and friends from round here) are doing social work, nursing, music production, travel and tourism. No RG uni's, no changes in personality or work ethic so far as I can tell (2nd years)

They'll all be very useful adults though

Aspiring working class.

Ultimately if someone needs to work to put food on the table they are working class...

Does it matter?

I think in a way yes, but also in a way no. When my dad went at the end of the 1970's, it definitely wasn't the norm and you pretty much had your pick of the jobs. for example, you could have done pharmacy but end u working in investment banking or something, and there would have been none of these phsycometric testing that you have to do these days.

i think in the modern day, it does to an extent. it's more subtle, and i found when i went to my northern russel group university and studied law, there were very middle middle class people. in some of the other subjects and some of my friends who did newer degree subjects at newer universities, their experience was totally different and the people tended to be the first in their families to head to university.

I'd say you're still working class Op, but well educated. I'm the same myself - first person in my family to go to University and now have a 6-figure salary (graduated 20 years ago) but I'm still very much working class. I do have a lovely house and holidays etc and all the trappings of being middle class but I still consider myself working class.

Now that I've typed this out, it's making me question why I feel that way and I can't quite articulate it but I definitely still say working class.

No
My sister was the first and only member of our family to go to university. We lived in one of the roughest council estates in Glasgow. She was the only one out of the 6 siblings who actually enjoyed school and was always studying. All these years later she's done alright for herself but is still very much working class.

@Iamthewombat @LivingThatLockdownLife What has become different now? Is it because university is much more accessible to the working class and they can't be allowed to rise above their stations? Or is it because lots of people now go to university and study less traditional subjects such that going to university is no longer an achievement?

@FunnyInjury I studied Biochemistry.

It is a step to social mobility, but it doesn't stop at the degree. I'm from a council estate upbringing, first one in the family to go despite being the youngest child. I have only really established that i am now "middle class" now that I am a parent myself and i have made hugely different choices for my son's upbringing. Even still though, in my 10 year professional career, the difference in my upbringing and experiences are very different from colleagues who were brought up in middle class families. Its an odd sensation of not really feeling i belong anywhere.

Only someone being wilfully blind to socioeconomics could really think that needing to work to earn a living makes you working class. Because really, all those working-class cabinet ministers and QCs?

Depends from what point of history you take the definition of middle class.

There are ministers and QCs that do not need to work due to "family money", they choose to work.

No- it doesn’t make you middle class.

My DH works in what would be considered a middle class profession. Trained for years etc and is member of the governing body that oversees the profession.

We live and have a mortgage on a 4 bed detached house

DH has a degree as do I.

We have two cars

Some may say these are traits of being middle class.

I’m working class through and through though. Parents worked in factories and we lived in a council house. They never went to uni. That’s where I grew up and I absolutely feel the same now as I did then.

I hold a degree in a STEM subject and have a pretty decent job. I still feel working class to the core, especially amongst my owers at work.

Ugh, peers

I think it's much more complicated than that.

People always talk about 'class' as if it's something with actual rules that are objective. But it's more about a perspective from which you define yourself and others, IME. I recently read an interview with Kirstie Allsopp where she described how her parents were 'typically middle class,' but the interviewer let slip her father was a baron! OTOH, when I first met my DP and we were chatting about our childhoods, she explained her family were definitely 'middle class' because they were educated, they weren't rough (they grew up on benefits, in a council house, and my DP is the first in her family to go to university).

I reckon Kirstie and my DP have a different definition of 'middle class,' and I know which one implies more hard work!

What worries me about the idea that university makes you middle class is that it implies there are no more barriers. And that's not true. People who had advantages before they went to university still tend to have more advantages afterwards. People who got there against the odds, tend to have to work harder.

I think class means different things to different people. I'm.a graduate, but I'm not working. I am currently living on carers allowance but I'm no better of worse off than a few years ago in a corporate job. I'm no thicker or cleverer. My dh has the same job, kids in the same school. Drive the same car. One friend thinks your job or dh job defines your class. By that logic I was middle class but now I'm lower class ( cant be working class as I'm not working).
I have always seen myself as lower class due to my upbringing. No holidays, no car. Terrace house in a rough area. Rough school etc.
But class means nothing to me. I honestly dont care. I do quite well. I can work towards most things I want ( thank God days of free uni and a STEM degree).
I dont need others to validate me. I'm good at what I'm.good at and sometimes that can earn me a good wage. I'm just cynical from my corporate life where the CEO made billions. So I got what I needed and left. Caring quite happily for my disabled son.

Just reading this whilst watching ‘Educating Rita’ (for about the fourth time). Great film and still relevant - the scene where she doesn’t go to the middle class party because she doesn’t think she’ll fit it, but can’t quite go back to being content to go to the pub with her family either. That sums it up for me: working class girl, did my degrees in my 20s, am now in a solidly ‘middle class’ profession. I experience myself as a hybrid and still get occasional moments of dislocation in different social settings. I’m afraid those invisible lines of privilege are still present and still have power.

@Sadie789 It doesn't really matter, no. It is something I had never really thought about until I started reading Mumsnet and realised that class was something people did think about and that there were all these subtle markers of people's social class. It makes me feel a bit insecure to be honest and like I am a bit of an imposter

@HiHoAstonVilla I studied Biochemistry and was definitely surrounded by middle class students.