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.

In my case, the answer is yes.

I grew up on a council estate in a shithole ex-mining town in Derbyshire. I went to a state school then became the first person in my family to go to university and on to a professional career. It was like entering a completely different world, one in which I could finally be myself instead of being the object of ridicule for reading books & broadsheet newspapers or listening to R4.

By any objectIve criteria, I am now middle class and I have learned to blend in well enough that many of my colleagues would be surprised to learn that I grew up on a council estate. I always feel, however, that I don’t completely belong in this environment and I will always be an immigrant, never a native.

I've just done that test and it put me in the elite category! Not sure how that works although assume it made the majority of assumptions on income, house value and savings?

I live in Australia - class rules like this just don't exist here. I find it difficult to imagine living in a society where such a thing would exist. Putting labels on people is an alien concept to me , and it makes me sad that the UK would continue to perpetuate a caste system like this.

@InvisibleWomenMustBeRead

Buy us all a drink then

No

I did that test for me and my dad. He's technical mc and I am established mc. Bears out my gut reaction.

it makes me sad that the UK would continue to perpetuate a caste system like this

Cheer up. MN is giving you a much distorted view of its importance (or lack of).

I grew up working class and like many others in my generation, was the first in my family to go to work. I do now consider myself to be middle class. Not just because of my job, but I can see that I have very different attitudes to my parents and brother, and as a previous poster said, I have a very different attitude towards education when raising my children.

This doesn't in any way diminish the way my parents raised me. I have brilliant parents and a fantastic childhood. But I teach Sociology now and when I teach family or education the textbook definitions of class perfectly describes me and my family.

It used to be a 'social marker' based on the fact there weren't student loans. Even if you passed the entrance exams unless you were the top % to qualify for scholarship then the fees had to be financed by family.

When I was doing my undergraduate it was a big mix of different social classes. Most of my friends were working class, our fees were mostly paid for us because we came from lower income homes and we worked hard to get money to pay for travel etc. We had a fab time!

Went back to uni not long ago as a mature student and it seemed to be mostly middle class who had no commitments other than uni and so could make it their full time job. Saw a couple students from working class backgrounds and it felt so unfair that they were working around the clock trying to earn enough to break even at the end, running themselves ragged and then getting lower scores and blaming themselves rather than noticing the advantage someone else may have had. That is just my experience, in one faculty at one university though, maybe it is different elsewhere.

Also from a sociology perspective its interesting that the UC tend to bond historically far better with the WC than the MC. I've witnessed a few judges favourably bonding with a 'bad lad' because of a shared love of grouse beating, fishing, horses. The UC tend to know 'exactly who they are', as do the WC. It generally only seems the MC (or wanting to be upwardly mobile) who tend to fret over a naice postcode, shopping, possessions. The UC are often quite happy hanging out with the gardener chatting about veg with their arse hanging out of their trousers.

@converseandjeans - I think people do believe some universities are better, yes, I'm just interested in the idea this is really well linked to a research group. It's very MN.

It depends.. i agree that it makes you more educated.

I know exactly who i am as a middle class, buti am irish so we tend to play down privilege.

Middle class is such a dirty word in the uk.

Surely the degree would depend. I think anyone would struggle to call a doctor or a lawyer working class.

Also sometimes it can be hard to see that you have changed, although others see. I remember reading an interview, possibly in Hello magazine, where the interviewee sat in her country mansion describing how her gardener did this etc peppering her talk with "we, the working class..."
There was no way you'd have thought she was working class, but she clearly did.

I don't know... I'm not British but live here and it's SO confusing. All my family went to university. My father was a successful business man, I had a nanny, a gardener and a maid. Didn't have a drive becaus my DM likes to drive. Went to private schools and have travelled the world. I thought I was upper middle but here it seems like my upbringing was a lot closer to proper upper class.

It used to be a 'social marker' based on the fact there weren't student loans. Even if you passed the entrance exams unless you were the top % to qualify for scholarship then the fees had to be financed by family.

When was this? 1481?

Student loans came in in my second year, 1990. Before that there were grants. Grants and student loans co-existed for a few years; the grant was frozen and loans were there to top up with.

At that time, only Oxford and Cambridge had entrance exams, and even they were optional; you could apply based on your O level grades and an interview with an academic.

Grants were awarded based on family income. If your parents earned less than £X you got a full grant. It worked on a sliding scale. Above a certain level, you parents had to finance your living costs.

Fees weren’t payable until much later, and anybody can borrow to cover the fees, irrespective of parental income. Fees have never had to be financed by students’ families.

All of the above applied irrespective of whether you had a scholarship (if scholarships had been the only way for kids from poorer families to get to university, very few would have gone).

Definitely not 🤣

Nope. I have multiple postgrad degrees, including an Oxford DPhil, and I consider myself educated working class.

God I hope not. What a dull world it would be if universities churned out nothing but middle class young adults.

Class is such a weird thing. I was brought up very working class with a single mother on a council estate, her parents had been shop keepers. My father was also born to working class parents, RAF and supermarket worker.

However my father went on to be very successful and is a millionaire (low millions and mostly invested but undoubtedly worth a few million). But he didn’t bring me up and I’ve never seen the benefit of his success. He lives a very middle class lifestyle now, lovely country house, 4x4 cars, beautiful holidays, AGA in the kitchen etc etc.

I am married to a professional but he earns under 30k and i am a SAHM who does volunteering, we like to do “middle class” things such as National Trust membership, cottage holidays, watch BBC4 documentaries etc etc. but I’m not middle class so therefore those are not middle class things!!

I don’t fit into a box, you can’t assume my lifestyle from my past or my family or my job or my degree. It’s so weird we think like this in the U.K.

It can get you a professional job and which is a key class indicator

No. It makes you confused about which class you belong to - sort of belonging to both, but neither at the same time. I grew up WC, dodgy council estate, free school meals etc, but I had much more parental support than some of my friends in similar areas. I also had a lot of MC friends with nice MC houses, posh cars and ponies (rural area). I’m the first in my family to go to uni, and first to get a PhD. I now live in a distinctly MC area with MC neighbours and values. When I go home, our affluence means that I don’t really understand what life is like for my WC relatives and peers. But amongst my MC school-mum friends I definitely don’t have the same experience of nice holidays, lots of extra curriculars etc. There are a couple of us who have a similar background and we have a natural understanding of each other, and I think we also carry some guilt about our own success. I also think my temperament betrays my roots a little - where I grew up you needed to be tough so that people didn’t mess with you. I have a good resting bitch face, and I’m prone to outbursts that I don’t think my MC peers would be

No. I was working class before and after graduating. I'm still working class. I'm a working class person who has a degree. That's it.

I don't know what class I am.
My DF was brought up in care, left school at 14 with no qualifications and went to work on the motorways, my DM has a teaching certificate.
My DSis and I both went to uni, she did much better than me and is now post-doc.
DH and I own our own home, mostly thanks to both his parents dying at a young age.
Am I WC or Middle? If I'm middle, when did it change? When I applied to uni, when I got in, when i got my (poor) degree?

I would struggle to describe a biochemist with a PhD as working class, if I’m honest.
Working class roots, absolutely

I can’t argue with this.

Got me thinking, what would people consider middle class careers?

Doctor
Solicitor
chartered Accountant
Pharmacist
Mechanical engineer
Secretary
Teacher
Bank manager
Paramedic
Policeman

Interesting to know whether people would consider the above middle class?