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Original poster

Anyone go to Oxbridge but not earn very much?

74 replies

OhFreedom · 06/03/2024 18:42

I just went to a careers evening with DC at the local 6th form college he goes to. It included a talk about Oxbridge, and it mentioned the high earning potential for Oxbridge degrees. It just made me think (and - to be honest - wonder about the choices I'd made)....

I went to Oxbridge, and did a degree in a highly competitive subject. Then - being young and idealistic - I went and did an interesting (and I thought morally-driven) job, which is not very high paid. It's not bad pay (about £50k fte)- I'm not complaining - but not exactly high. I also married a low earner, and it literally never crossed my mind to think about this aspect of him when I fell for him, all those years ago. We're still very happy together (after 25 years), but often don't have much spare cash, especially these days.

Now that I think about it, almost all the people I know from uni are high earners (or at least higher than I am!).

Is it bad that - just for this evening - I feel like I really missed a trick?

OP posts:
Original poster
OhFreedom · 06/03/2024 18:44

Reading that back, I already feel like a massive bellend.

OP posts:
Muteswan · 06/03/2024 18:46

Me and DH! Both Oxbridge grads - I'm a SAHM and he's self employed and we're barely making ends meet (he earns quite a lot less than you). I have zero regrets, neither of us would have wanted to work "in the city". There's also a degree of class expectations to it, we were both from state schools and couldn't have afforded gap yahs or internships and didn't have a network of rich and famous types waiting to welcome us.

Obviously being less poor would be nice but our education was amazing and I know for a fact that our whole world view would have been less rich studying at a different uni.

mynameiscalypso · 06/03/2024 18:46

I also went to Oxbridge and am not a huge earner now. I took a big pay cut to move into the third sector from the private sector. Most of my university friends are good but not high earners - teachers, psychologists, self-employed running a small business, performing - but I think that's a reflection of the people I was friends with. I'm sure a lot of people I was at university with are very high earners now. I think we're all happy with our own life choices to be honest even if that means we don't earn as much as our 'potential'

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Higher education
Octavia64 · 06/03/2024 18:47

Teacher.

Was never going to be well paid!

Original poster
OhFreedom · 06/03/2024 18:49

OK, thank you all... I'm over it now😂

Not sure why that got me really. Probably because I really fancy a holiday, and that's not going to happen for a while.

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juniorspesh · 06/03/2024 18:49

Me. I did a traditionally lucrative subject as well. Self-employed in the arts now but have worked a mix of public/third sector jobs and never earned more than £45k FTE. I would rather drink a tin of paint than work a single day in a Magic Circle firm.

ItsallIeverwanted · 06/03/2024 18:50

I'm not a super-high earner, but I do a job that going to Cambridge and then onto further study helped. I don't feel bad about not earning more because that's the choice I made, I love my job and accept that it's not very well paid compared with some, but is well-enough paid for me to have a nice life, which is fine by me.

Original poster
OhFreedom · 06/03/2024 18:51

Yes, like all of you, I honestly can't imagine setting foot in one of the big city firms. I know quite a few semi-famous media types from uni days, but I would never have been suited to that either.

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WelcomeMarch · 06/03/2024 18:52

I'm self-employed. I use stuff from my (Oxbridge) degree for work every day, but earn rather less than you, partly because I'm knackered.

Original poster
OhFreedom · 06/03/2024 18:54

I should say, that's the FTE for my job. I earn less than that because I work part time. And DH earns a lot, lot less.

But we are extremely lucky. I do know that.

Interesting to read your responses, though...

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TedMullins · 06/03/2024 18:55

Not me but my bf. He went into a performing arts career and is a part time bartender alongside his performing so his overall earnings are about 25-30k. Most of his uni friends are similar - either in the arts or teachers, one runs a bookshop and another is an unemployed hippy living on a Buddhist commune 😂 they’re all really nice, genuine, creative people. I find braying posho finance types a massive turnoff so had my bf ended up one of those we’d never have ended up together (he doesn’t like them either or the idea of such a career hence his life choices). I don’t have a degree at all and I earn considerably more than him so I don’t think uni is the be all and end all when it comes to earnings.

TheFancyPoet · 06/03/2024 18:56

yes, another two here. My husband is the most amazing man and soul. To Heaven with him, money is dangerous

ChristianHornersGlisteningFinger · 06/03/2024 18:58

@Muteswan I think it’s a bit unwise to insinuate that a person with an Oxbridge degree also needs family money and contacts to get a good, well-paid job. Not denying that many do have those, but I have lots and lots of state school-educated friends from Cambridge, with zero connections, who got well-paid jobs both inside and outside the City after graduation. I am one. If you go around saying things like that, you will put off many young people from even applying.

Of my and DH’s cohorts, now in our late forties and early fifties, I would say that the majority do earn well, or are quite high up in fairly badly-paid professions like civil service or academia or teaching.

DuckonaBike · 06/03/2024 18:58

Yes, me too, and quite a few of my friends. I seem to have stayed closest to the ones who didn’t become captains of industry. I enjoy my job though.

I think the connection between education level and earning power is often quite tenuous.

Overtheatlantic · 06/03/2024 19:01

My husband is a decent earner, over £120k, but he’s moved up over the years and never worked in the city but always in tech. I’m on 30k in the southwest. We’re better off than most but certainly not what we could be on if he’d gone in to finance.

fabio12 · 06/03/2024 19:02

I always think of Oxbridge graduates as ones who will invent or change the world in some way, the groundbreaking few if you like. I don't really associate that with earnings more a really deep love of a subject to almost the point of obsession that becomes a life's work. I do always feel a tinge of sadness when they bankers or something dull admittedly, unless they were studying economics, as it always feels like a cop out from whatever they must have enjoyed so much as a teen.

juniorspesh · 06/03/2024 19:02

People I’ve stayed in touch with from there:

works in a microbrewery
human rights professor
public sector librarian
lecturer at post-92 uni
actor / barman
high up in local govt
artist
psychotherapist

People I don’t really see much anymore:

lawyer x 100
PR for big pharma

MarisPiper92 · 06/03/2024 19:06

I read a stat somewhere that social class as a child is a bigger indicator for future earnings than university (unsurprising really). So a working-class kid and a posh kid both go to Oxbridge, the posh one is likely to end up with the higher salary. That's my excuse, anyway.

ItsallIeverwanted · 06/03/2024 19:08

Surely it gives you lots of choices though. I went at a time few went to uni anyway, and so going to Oxbridge did have a real impact in terms of opening doors at least to grad schemes, even though I didn't have the social capital of some. I didn't want to go that route, and I still love studying, so academia has been a great career choice for me- but the point is I had a choice, and that's what's so valuable.

Colinfromaccounts24 · 06/03/2024 19:09

Also not a high earner. Did initially go into a Big 4 firm, hated it and now work in HE. Also married a not high earner. Most of my friends also not high earners , but I wasn't really friends with city types.

Ladyritacircumference · 06/03/2024 19:11

Yes, that is me. Cambridge Theology , then went on to be a youth worker, outdoor instructor… now I am a countryside ranger.

AnnaMagnani · 06/03/2024 19:12

My DH and his brother!

One of them is a teacher, one doesn't work due to disabilities - but wasn't well paid before that.

I went to DH's college reunion with him, it was absolutely a collection of burned out autistic people who were busy cutting down their hours or reducing their seniority at work.

Original poster
OhFreedom · 06/03/2024 19:12

You're right of course @ItsallIeverwanted. I definitely did have a sense of choice. I suppose at some point, the choice wears off, and then you can wonder about how you USED that choice? But anyway, I'm over the wobble now (partly thanks to writing it down - and to the responses here)

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JanewaysBun · 06/03/2024 19:14

I know people who have City jobs but also a lot (from Cambridge specifically) who are teachers. It makes sese as they have a deep love for their subjects (all science-y) so want to pass that love onto others

maudmadrigal · 06/03/2024 19:22

I earn about 35k FTE, self-employed. After graduating I went into publishing, which back then was full of Oxbridge graduates (may still be now - I don't know), and notoriously badly paid.

DH earns about £120k in a senior public sector role. The other people I know from my college days include:

lots of lawyers and actuaries (tend to be the wealthiest)
teachers
charity CEOs
author
doctors
journalist/comms/media managers
civil service
academics
hedge fund managers.

Many/most of them are better off than us financially. I feel lucky to have had the choices and opportunities it offered.