To think university is overrated?

[WeAreGypsy]

I did a degree at a normal university, in my early 20s, and although it had its merits I think it was overall an overrated experience.

For this reason I find it hard to recommend to my own children to follow that path. Except for the sciences and vocational courses like law, medicine etc. Or if you have a have a total passion for your subject (I didn't, I just wandered into mine).

The fact that you could leave university at age 21+ with over £40K debts is also a killer for me.

Yet everyone talks about going to university, schools encourage it, and its almost seen as a rite of passage.

Am interested in others' thoughts on this and what you hope for your children.

I wish I'd studied something different. I didn't know what I wanted to do so just picked a subject I liked in arts and humanities. I should have waited and got a job and more worldly experience in retrospect then gone back to uni when I had an idea of what I wanted to do. I wish I'd studied something more vocational.

I wish my university would piss off now. I still get entirely boring newsletter mags from them and begging letters from students. Sometimes students ring me up to try to get money/anvice/contacts/work experience. I have to tell them I'm a SAHM and don't earn a bean, am unlikely to work in the field again and face the prospect of minimum wage jobs when I start work again or spending £££ on retraining.

It was the best thing I ever did. I went when fees were £1100 a year and came out with about £12k debt but it has never mattered and has always been ignored when getting any kind of credit including a mortgage.

I went to Durham and studied French and Spanish. I wouldn't say the subject itself has helped my career, although you do need a degree for my line of work, but I met some fantastic people (I'm going on a mini-break on Monday with the girl who was my neighbour in halls in 2003, and I met my now-husband in first year) and got the chance to live and study abroad for a year. I worked part time for my final 2 years while living with my boyfriend and it was a great transition into adulthood.

If I hadn't gone to uni I'd probably have stayed with my nightmare boyfriend in my home town and wouldn't have ended up moving out for years. I think my life would be very different.

I suppose I am saying that frenchknitting, because you can read history at home if that is your interest (not the same as wanting to be a historian or having an overwhelming desire to study it full-time). For the sciences you need practical facilities.

Pettywoman made me laugh on those phonecalls

But my position is not disimmilar!

Going to university was brilliant. Most of my closest and most loyal friends date from uni. I learnt how to live on my own without actually being on my own (shared houses, and halls in first year). I experienced living in a big city, having grown up in a small suburban town. I met my DH (now divorced but that's by the by!). I also studied a subject I enjoyed. Although my career now is not related to that subject, it was a prerequisite to get into this career that I had a degree - to which I added vocational studies.

I am a great believer in studying for studying's sake, if you enjoy it. My degree equipped me with learning and self-motivation skills.

I wasnt ready emotionally and maturity wise for my undergrad degree. It was wasted on me. My masters on the other hand were amazing! I did my undergrad in the days it was free plus grants. I didnt drink so i always felt i never fit in. For me i felt my masters had students that were interested in intellectual and academic debate. Loved it.

I think a lot of people feel conflicted. I know university lecturers who don't feel they can encourage their own children to go to university because it's not worth the money anymore, or who don't feel it's ethical for them to work at open days, for the same reason.

There are two problems, and they are interlinked - higher education has become devalued by the sheer numbers of people who do degrees, and students have become consumers instead of learners because of the huge amounts of money they are paying. At many institutions, standards have dropped, with undergraduate students struggling to perform tasks that would have been expected of GCSE students 10 years ago. Graduate jobs are difficult to get, especially for arts and humanities graduates. Schools are under pressure to send as many people to university as possible, and some institutions are taking on more and more students to increase revenue, which is driving down standards.

I absolutely loved university, they were the best years of my life, but I didn't have to pay the kind of fees that students have to pay now. I don't regret going to university or studying what I studied, which didn't help me get a job, but I might have regretted it if I had the same level of debt that current students will have.

I couldn't do the job I do if I hadn't been to uni, ok when I went to uni you didn't end up th X amount of debt. Going away to uni also made me much more grown up as I had to learn to care for myself

My eldest son is 20 and he is at uni because even with the fees these days IMO uni is still worth it

For me university was the absolute best 3 years of my life. Getting a degree was a bit secondary for me to the experience itself (this was unfortunately reflected in my grade but thankfully doing a part time masters recently has made up for it!). 9 years since I graduated and the friends I made are still the closest people in my life. I think for me it was where I really got to know myself. Some people take gap years to travel for the same reason but for me it was living with my friends and sharing so many great experiences with them and balancing uni life, uni work and having a few jobs to pay my way through that helped me become who I am. Everyone is different and some people will respond well to it others wont

I have a son currently at Uni. I very much encouraged him to go even though the cost is astronomical. He gets a maintainance grant because of my income but he will leave with huge debt. Having said that I encouraged him because he is incredibly bright and I couldnt stand to see his brain go to waste. More importantly we live in a city that doesnt have much to offer in terms of employment, a decent future for young people and I wanted him to have the experience of leaving home and exploring etc. So far he is loving every minute, has met a girl and fallen in love, is heading for a first and absolutely loves the city that he is studying in. I couldnt be happier and neither could he.

There are so many jobs for which you need a degree, you really narrow your options without one.

It's not as if it's particularly hard work bar Oxbridge.

It gives you plenty of time to work and do work experience too.

I think it's a bit overrated now. I did a degree and it did get me into some good jobs but I wish I'd use my social time better as a lot of people made really good friends from university and I suffered badly with anxiety. Sadly I haven't used my degree all that much as I gave up work to become a ft carer of my two children with autism.

It's an expensive pursuit though. My dh never went and now has a really well paid job but he's a qualified accountant. I think it depends what you want from it. If my children suggested uni and had the grades and the course and uni were worthwhile I get that but not if they fancy it as a three year long social not with the fees as they are.

It's interesting how many of these posts talk about the biggest positives being from the social aspect rather than the actual degree.

There appears to be more and more importance these days being placed on having a degree for a job interview/position than the actual person applying and their experience.

Where I am based a Bachelors is a necessity and a Masters preferred which is absolutely false economy as I could buy either from the internet tomorrow. And many of the people here have.

I went. I only managed to stay 10 months as this was post-grants and pre-loans - my Dad earned "too much" for any assistance. The course was crap anyway as they were covering things I learned in the first year of senior school.

I didn't study either of the two subjects I would have wanted to (one, I was forcibly refused by my school at A-level as it was still in the misguided days of "you can't mix arts and science subjects").

Neither of which would have assisted me in my career though which was actually based on the degree I was actually studying.

The social side though actually scarred me a lot (and I wasn't in a great mental place when I went in any case, having had my first child die 10 months previously).

I had a housemate who was growing cannabis up in the loft extension, two others who were in a relationship where they had regular physical fights. I was drugged in a nightclub and left for dead and I was found in a toilet stall. I still have no idea what happened.

I have absolutely no contact from anyone from those 10 months, and neither would I want to.

I went to a Poly (showing my age), back in the day of student grants and being able to sign-on in the holidays.

It was a technical degree, and a sandwich course, which meant you spent year 3 working in a relevant job. That one year's experience was more useful job-wise than the actual degree, which I have never been asked to produce. Which is lucky, as I ended up doing the final year part-time as I got offered a job and they wanted £50 of me to get the piece of paper at a ceremony - I refused to pay!

I am on fence, I suppose. There are many successful ways thru life.

I graduated from a Uni most people haven't heard of & didn't much rate in the 1980s.
Big debt from Uni has long been normal where I'm from.
I didn't "love" my subject, it just seemed like the least bad option.
I mastered living independently before Uni.
I had other decent career opportunities (no degree required).
I never drank at all, I worked in my spare hours, even though I went to a Uni notorious for its "Party" reputation.
So I didn't have much social life at Uni.

But Me not going to Uni would have been terrible and I would have missed out so many opportunities or the types of work I really am best at. I lucked into a growth area (something technical, never knew I was capable at technical things before Uni).

My DC1 (plenty clever academically) will not go to Uni & I think he's missing out a lot... mostly he's missing out on experiences that would really open up his perspectives. He'd rather be a reactionary git, next generation Thatcherite.

not sure if this is any use to you as I don't have kids but I do have godchildren

I have the same issue - I found university an expensive waste of time and regretted going. By the time I realised this I was half way through the course. I had to work to pay my way through it and was offered a full time permanent job in that place. But I carried on because I felt I had started and I might as well finish.

I am not in a career where it would have made any difference and frankly 3 years of proper earning would have had me buy a home earlier which in turn with crazy house prices would have meant I'd not be living in a tiny flat now (the difference between my flat and a bigger flat having gotten too huge).

But...my sister didn't go to uni, started out in a clerical role, changed paths and now finds she is automatically ruled out from certain jobs because she didn't go.

It will partly depend on the child. I think things like hairdressing, plumbing, electrician would be good trades to get into - but then again their rates seem to have gone down like everywhere else.

if the child really wants to go and wants to do management strategy or journalism or something, then I guess they have to.

but one other option is always that they could start work, see how they feel and at least have some savings in the bank.

Problem is lots of jobs now require a degree even if the subject is irrelevant to the job. It is just a way of weeding out applicants.
My degree wasn't a useful subject and didn't really teach me how to think. Getting awAy from the shitty place I grew up was invaluable though, and my horizons broadened immensely. I also have a better job than I would have just because a degree is a passport to opportunity.
I do hope apprenticeships are off the ground and a good option for my boys when they grow up though. I hate the thought of all that debt at the start of life.

Loads of job adverts seem to want a degree. Doesn't seem to matter what it is almost like they want to see you've stuck at something.

I went to university and it was the best experience of my life. It wasn't vital for my job, but meant that I was able to move abroad to work on a graduate visa. It has also gained me "points" for other countries' immigration systems to allow me to live there too.

My brother didn't go to university and has already been overlooked for jobs because he doesn't have a degree. He is struggling to earn over minimum wage because of this. I waltzed into a 26k job at 22, graduating into a recession and went onto earn 37k (after tax) by 25, just because I had a degree that enabled me to get a graduate visa and move abroad.

I have made a fantastic network of business contacts, made friends from all around the world, travelled to many countries and lived and worked in 4 countries by 25. I wouldn't have been able to do that without going to university in this day and age.

I think part of the unspoken idea of tuition fees is to make more people think about the long term payback, what they will do with it. So require universities to offer better courses, and also only go when it is worth it.

Someone said up thread their sister was penalised now for not having a degree. She could / should go now and get one. I think for adults with a job, studying is not too difficult to fit around work.

One of my brothers friends didn't go at 18 because he wanted to get a job. Then did go in his early 20s and approached it with a whole different attitude and did very well.

University is not for everyone, and certainly not at 18. I think there are plenty that would benefit from working for a while and then going - it can help you choose the right course, and be clear on motivation (e.g. getting a better job).

Personally, it was well worth it. I am nearly 40 and my degree is still the gift that keeps on giving. But then I went to Oxbridge. I worked hard to ge there and hard when I go there. E.g. I wrote over 100 essays during the three years (I gather some courses its 1-2 a term). None of them counted towards my degree which was all settled by 8 exams sat in a week at the end of the third year.

My course was interesting and I learned lots of things. Some of it useful, some not. Most importantly, it taught me how to thing. The requirement to produce two, 2000 word essays a week teaches you how to get things done. I used those skill every day now in a high level advisory job in business. How to filter through reams of complex imformation and pick out and analyse what is truly important.

it also freed me. I spent my 20s pursuing an artistic career, which was wonderful but always a struggle. As I approach my 30s I wanted to change my working life, for more stability and better earnings before I had a family. My Oxbridge degree still carried plenty of kudos and helped me get a first job into a different career path, and then a second. Now, 10 years later, I am in an interesting, satisfying and well paid job, and probably only a couple of years behind where I would be if I'd pursued this path straight after graduating.

I'd also say I got a lot out of extra curricular stuff while a student. the student bodies at those universities is highly motivated and hugely knowledgable, so there's lots of stuff to get stuck into and lots of people that will show up and turn an idea into reality in a few days flat.

Completely agree as I sit here with me BSc, it's good for the right person but it really hasn't meant I'm more experienced or values any higher than a non graduate.

My**

It's not as if it's particularly hard work bar Oxbridge. It gives you plenty of time to work and do work experience too.

Depends on subject. Scientists, engineers, medics all work hard if they want to get a 2:i or above. In most STEM subjects it is not possible to work much during term time along with studying.

I am university educated and work in an interesting field which pays me 100k or so per year (for main job plus consultancy work). Not sure that there are that many jobs I could get paying that much without university degrees.

I think it really depends.

For me, it was the best time of my life. I grew as a person, learned to think for myself, developed a total passion for my subject and although I no longer am active in the field (I did do a phd and lectured for a while, so kept it up for a long time) I couldn’t do the job I’m doing now without it and am it informs a lot of my life choices.

I can’t imagine not going to university, but I agree it shouldn’t be the only option and I know people who’ve not gone who’ve really done well for themselves. I do think, however, before you discourage your children from going, check what they want to do. A lot of jobs do expect degrees, whether people need them or not, and I’ve seen very bright people struggle because they haven’t ticked that box.