Is public opinion changing on the merits of Higher Education expansion?

[tryasimite]

I saw this BBC article and it resonates with a lot of what I see here on Mumsnet and in "real life" ... burdening young people with expensive loans for attractive-sounding but unnecessary and sometimes poor quality qualifications from institutions fighting to keep their financial heads above water is not necessarily a good thing, and worth questioning.

BBC News - Geoff Norcott: Should my son bother going to uni?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68484598

I've already told mine that if they don't have an actual proper career in mind where a degree is essential, that I won't be funding uni for them.

Degree apprenticeships or trades are where I'll be directing mine too.

This really could prove to be irrational in financial terms.

It is understandable because there's a lot of rhetoric from the right seeking to cut the numbers of young people getting degrees, but he might want to calculate what he could earn with a maths degree Vs without and deduct the loan repayments.

If anyone can get a paid degree that is obviously great but for Maths/Physics in particular not going could potentially cost him hundreds of thousands over a lifetime.

"It is understandable because there's a lot of rhetoric from the right seeking to cut the numbers of young people getting degrees"

Is Euan Blair on the 'right' of politics?: https://inews.co.uk/opinion/euan-blair-idea-good-degree-outdated-damaging-2552385

Maybe HE expansion was a good idea at the time his father was Prime Minster but, like many good ideas, it went too far and had unforeseen consequences.

Some of us were better at basic maths and could see that Tony Blair was wrong about this.

A job I did when I was 18, not requires you to be a graduate. Madness.

and had unforeseen consequences.

Many people entirely foresaw those consequences. He didn't listen, though.

@LightSwerve Agreed, you are quite right. I fully intend to change ds' mind and build his confidence that university in his case will be worth it, but arguing head on with a 16yo is not the best way to win the argument.

I'm his aged mum, who knows nothing of the world and went to uni before they invented electricity so he won't listen to me. 😀

I need to choose the right messenger.

I may not agree 100% with Geoff Norcott, but I am certain had I faced loans etc when I was a student, I would not have gone to university. There were good career options for A level leavers at the time I would have considered.

I think in a way we have replaced the divide at 11 that existed between 1945 and about 1980 with one at 18. Then I think of the jobs where there is a shortage that many more people could do, instead of a degree at a low rated university.

The evidence is contrary to that though. Demand did not decrease when higher fees came in 2012.

HE is a good thing but it's simply not worth the cost of being lumbered with student loan debt.

MY DS got nothing out of his degree, although years 2 and 3 were completely ruined by lockdown.

If he was at an age when he was deciding whether or not to do a degree now I would advise him to think about getting a job, finding out what he really wants to do and then maybe doing a degree later if need be.

That's a different position to the one taken by the right.

The question of how we educate is different to whether we should. Many on the right simply want a return to the old days where there was a small educated elite.

He's not saying a degree isn't worth it, he's saying on the job training should have equally HIGH status. If we want on-the-job learning to have the same prestige as classroom learning, it must be codified in a structured way.

He makes his living from non-degree education, so he is going to push that case. But the scale of apprenticeships currently is low, they are very competitive, so for most young people a degree is the easier route to high qualifications, which enable you to access more of the labour market.

"He makes his living from non-degree education, so he is going to push that case"

Well yes, but the reason he started his business, and makes his living out of it, is that he feels passionate about it, so I wouldn't see that as a reason to dismiss his viewpoint. He realised from his own experience that having a history degree didn't equip him for the modern workplace.

"Many on the right simply want a return to the old days where there was a small educated elite."

It's a very reductive argument to imply that because a commentator trends to right or left of centre politically that all their views should be dismissed. Hopefully people will consider viewpoints on their merit rather than through a politically prejudiced lens.

I think it's important to consider who is saying degrees are not valuable, and reflect on their motivations for doing so.

The noise on degrees is not about improving social mobility, it is about taking us backwards as a society.

There's a progressive route to diversifying education, but my view is it is a brave choice to encourage a young person to exclude themselves from large sections of the jobs market given where the UK is currently.

DD3 academically the brightest of our DCs refused point blank to go to university. She's now the highest earner of our DCs and the only one to own her own property.

My DD has no choice to go to university because of what she wants to do in life. There is not another route in, if there was she'd be taking it. She'd love an apprenticeship and get someone else to pay for her degree, but it's not an option.

She has no desire to go to university 'for the experience' either. Financially it would be an absolute stretch for her to move away, so she's staying at home.

It's always important to understand motivation, but using phrases like "on the right/left" as labels to dismiss viewpoints leads to polarisation and tribalism. There is too much of that in public debate.

It’s way more than £30k you are forgetting living costs. I went to uni when it was £3k for 4 year degree and my loan was around £28k (£4k x 4 living costs + £3k x 4 loan) and that was with a bursary and scholarship.

Bursary is now scrapped and obviously student loans have increased because COL increased so I imagine it’s more like £30k loan for living costs plus £30k fees now.

I don't know about "changing". A lot of people thought the expansion and particularly Blair's 50% target was absolutely barking mad at the time, some 20-25 years ago, and they've been proved right!!

I think a big issue is students still feel like there is no alternative. Yes on paper you might have apprentices etc but if I was 18 right now I doubt there would be one within commuting distance of where I grew up and navigating that without support would be a minefield. And there is so much risk if you don’t like your employer/ manager etc whereas university is still a safe option.

Schools will walk you through UCAS, lots of degrees are still useful even if you do an unrelated career so you don’t have to nail yourself to a fixed path like a plumbing apprenticeship or accountancy. I work in finance and my colleagues have degrees from good unis but in things like history , biology, languages , maths etc. so they basically were able to decide on degree paths later.

if I had an 18 year old right now I’d probably encourage them to look outside of uni but I would also feel quite panicked at the idea of them leaving alevels having not yet secured something on the assumption that they will find an apprenticeship /job with decent progression route eventually. It’s SO easy to get stuck in minimum wage admin /call centre /hospitality and struggle to break away because you’ve no experience other than those roles. I would be worried about that.

I'm quite unenamoured with it tbh. Someone on my course dropped out, travelled, got a job and worked their way up through a company. I graduated, got a job, and worked my way up through a company. I earn about 1/5th of her salary. She's worked bloody hard and deserves the success, but shows me that the degree means naff all.

We desperately need better careers advice and parents also need to step up and give better advice. After all, there is so much information and advice online, so youngsters need a "nudge" to start thinking about careers and to start doing research as to their options.

I think "Uni" is just seen as a kind of safe next step, i.e. GCSE, then A levels, then Degree, and then they seem completely flummoxed about what comes next.

Parents don't help because they don't seem to want their "little darlings" going into any kind of "manual" trade because they want the bragging rights to their friends, neighbours and relatives that Jemima is going to Uni - they don't get the same bragging rights saying she's going to college to become a mechanic or decorator!!

Options vary hugely across the country too. Here in NI we are lucky our fees are half the cost of those in England but we don't have graduate apprenticeships to speak of.

I don’t think he’s to the right, he’s just a self-serving little twerp who owns an apprenticeship training company so of course it’s in his own financial interest to extol the virtues of other educational routes.

Parents don't help because they don't seem to want their "little darlings" going into any kind of "manual" trade because they want the bragging rights to their friends, neighbours and relatives that Jemima is going to Uni - they don't get the same bragging rights saying she's going to college to become a mechanic or decorator

One thing that puts me off encouraging my child into a trade is that the local college campus that does building, plumbing, mechanics and electrics is full of kids who mess around, smoke, don't go in, misbehave - loads of them are just doing it so they can go and work for their uncle/dad/brother. I know this because a work colleague's son goes there and it sounds like a bit of a mess.

I also had a younger brother that really loved carpentry but in the second/final year of his joinery course he had to find work experience to complete the practical part of the modules - he couldn't as there were none available (he tried over a 20 mile radius, he was only 17 so this was difficult and he didn't get any help from the college, and therefore failed the course, dropped out of carpentry and was left with nothing. He was so upset and floundered for years after that.

These are the things that are making me encourage my child towards A levels and a degree.
The practical courses just aren't good enough.

Or, looking at it another way, he founded an apprenticeship training company because he wanted to extol the virtues of other educational routes.

The twerp label may say more about you than it does about him, but as I've not met either of you I'll reserve judgement. 😁

I am not saying everyone who holds a view is on the right. I'm saying there's a lot of noise about this from the right.

It's not really a full discussion if we have to pretend this isn't a political issue as well as a social issue.