To feel depressed for the future for 'treadmill families'?

[user1478265589]

A report on the BBC website today says more and more people are having to run, just to stay still, and that's the experience of many people I know. I don't even know what can be done about it, it's just really depressing...

• Millions of workers - particularly women - are trapped in low pay

• Only one in eight children from low-income backgrounds is likely to become a high-income earner as an adult

• From the early years through to universities and the workplace, there is an entrenched and unbroken correlation between social class and success

• Despite some efforts to change the social make-up of the professions, only 4% of doctors, 6% of barristers and 11% of journalists are from working-class backgrounds.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-37987166

I know loads of people working in admin, retail, and other low-paid jobs who have masters degrees from good universities. A masters degree really isn't a passport to riches.

Education definitely isn't a passport to riches... It's been sold as it though for the last decade and it's only now that people are realising how little degrees and masters count for...

But what if you don't have a degree - will you not even be able to get an admin job?

Times have changed. When my grandparents left school at 14, less than 2% of the population went to university (almost all of them male and many of them landed gentry at least). But it was very normal for the bright and hardworking to progress through adult education, articles and personal effort into the professions and the middle class. My great grandfather became a head teacher with no formal schooling past age 15. Family members with sufficient ability reached senior positions but I remain so far the only one with a degree, and I am nearing retirement age.

I think one of the big differences is that kids are encouraged to believe they can do and be anything. The sad truth is that society does not need many actors, dancers, fine artists, designers, or writers. A more bracing pragmatism is probably kinder in the long run for the (especially) arts, drama and fine art graduates who struggle to get paid work after multiple job applications; most of them will do mundane jobs and start life with big debts. The gap between have and have not hasn't really widened, but awareness of it has.

You could scortja but you'd be up against applications from people of the same age who do have degrees and probably have part-time work experience too

I've seen an advert for what was basically an admin job with a charity for 16k (in the expensive city I live in) that said a masters degree was preferred

Anyone bright enough to do a degree is bright enough to work out if it is a good move for them or not. And what the alternatives might be.

Personally, I think a move back to the 'good old days' when higher education was free/heavily subsidised but only 8% of the (middle/upper class) population got to go would be a terrible thing. And I really don't think that the 50% of people who don't get to go to uni paying taxes to subsidise the 50% who do is fair either.

You could scortja but you'd be up against applications from people of the same age who do have degrees and probably have part-time work experience too

So essentially you HAVE to do a degree to have a chance of any job.

It does seem silly doesn't it, my DM left school at 17 and always did secretarial/payroll type work so similar to what I do now. But I wonder if basic school leaving standards were higher, for e.g. both my DGMs left school at 11 (WW2!) but they were both literate and could do enough maths etc for day to day tasks (and maybe quicker than I could, i.e. Whereas I might get a calculator out to do covertions for baking they'd work it out by hand)

It's seen as pretty unusual for someone under 30 to not have a degree, unless they've gone into a trade. BUT most of those people don't need a degree to do their job, and are saddled with thousands of pounds of debt. It's a stupid system.

I'm from a working class town in NE, i have a degree and work in a professional job and would say i have a very good standard of living. I think a lot of that has to do with location, cost of living here seems much cheaper compared to friends and family living farther South. The housing market has been fairly stagnant for a number of years, and most of the people i know from here own their own homes and appear to have a good quality of living, nice cars, lots of socialising etc.

I would expect that university fees are off putting to many people and a degree is no guarantee of a decent job anyway, my degree is in a totally different subject to the field i now work in and i spent of lot of time re-training after i left uni to get where i am.

I can't say i've ever felt disadvantaged because my parents were low income earners, but then they always pushed me to better myself and were always involved in teaching me things and think if someone grows up without this input it would be very detrimental. Hopefully this is being addressed via the free education for 2 year olds.

I think we are at the start of a big, big social and economic change. You can see it coming: a world where we are hitting up against limits (climate change, resource depletion, pollution), where automation is an increasing threat to both unskilled and skilled labour (there are robot lawyers and robot radiologists), and where inequality is increasingly spatialised (old manufacturing capitalism is alive and well, just not in Europe and America).

It's scary shove

Only one in eight children from low-income backgrounds is likely to become a high-income earner as an adult

I actually thought that the stats would be worse than this. I'm surprised as many as one in eight manages to break the cycle, when the odds are so stacked against them.

I agree that it's become a bit of a double bind. Years ago, having a degree gave you a huge advantage because not many people had them but it was much easier then for people to get decent jobs without going to university- you could join a company and learn on the job and work your way up. There were proper apprenticeships.
Now, despite doing a degree costing a fortune, it doesn't give you anything like the advantage it used to because 50% of the population are degree educated. Most graduate starting salaries are shockingly low.
On the other hand, not having a degree or a qualification that qualifies you to do something practical, puts you at a much higher disadvantage than it used to and consigns you to a lifetime of low paid jobs. It's a bit shit really.

Hugs user - It doesn't have to be. It's not like everything is rainbows and unicorns right now, as the OP points out. Change can be good. We just have to insist that we build a new society that is based on values of care, and that means both looking after people who are poor, sick and vulnerable, making sure everyone is treated with dignity and respect, and not behaving entirely selfishly (we hear a lot about the selfish poor, but little about the selfish rich).

Just getting on thread to read later, as I've been worried about a lot of these issues for a while.

We are a pretty average family, DH works full time and due to company car has just fallen into the higher tax bracket and I work part time (as the difference between working part and full time is cancelled out by childcare for 3 kids) We have 2 cars due to living in a village and have camping holidays, shop in supermarkets and primark for clothes etc yet we are completely priced out of the housing market due to no deposit.
20 years ago we would have been able to get a 100% mortgage and still afford holidays abroad etc

Degrees now mean nothing and everything as precious posters have said - too many people have degrees to make them a massive difference to job hunting yet because so many people have them lower skilled jobs are going to people with degrees.

Yes, I find the whole world situation so depressing I've stopped watching the news or reading most of the newspapers. With Trump and Brexit I don't see society has much future, I worry for my children even though they are now early twenties and doing OK at present.

Personally, I think a move back to the 'good old days' when higher education was free/heavily subsidised but only 8% of the (middle/upper class) population got to go would be a terrible thing. And I really don't think that the 50% of people who don't get to go to uni paying taxes to subsidise the 50% who do is fair either

I disagree. I'd much rather 10-15% go to uni and it be paid for, as it was when I went to uni.

As for "why should 50% of the population pay for the other 50%" well that's kind of the attitude that's got us into this Brexit/populist mess. I'm ok why shoudl I pay anything for other people. A civilised society uses the taxes it raises for the good for all. So although I may not have children, my taxes go to pay for schools. Although I don't have any elderly relatives, my taxes go to pay for social care. Although I don't use the libraries, my taxes pay for them. And I pay for uni tuition because it's good for the country to have doctors, dentists, engineers, teachers. It's a societal need for those people to be educated into those jobs. And they'll pay way way more back in tax than their degrees ever cost.

I have repaid my degree tuition fees over and over again.

We live in a community and we all pay into the system. Yes some of us take more out than we put in - maybe at certain times of our lives we put more in than we take out. It all comes out in the wash. I find the "I didn't go to uni so why should I pay for others to go" so mean-spirited.

Brie - I have every sympathy for your situation, it's really rough.

However, people in the higher tax bracket are not "average". It is shocking, but the AVERAGE salary in the UK is £27,600 which is a way off the £43,000 or so needed for higher rate tax.

I am absolutely not saying "Oh well, you're OK then, as a higher rate taxpayer earning considerably more". I'm using this as a preface to saying: this - THIS - is how bad the housing situation is now getting!

The IFS has a calculator for where you sit in income terms. Try it, you might be surprised!

www.ifs.org.uk/wheredoyoufitin/

So many of my sons' friends did degrees in subjects such as psychology and criminology which were really rather unlikely to lead to well paid jobs, or indeed graduate jobs at all as they were from not very good former polytechnics. A couple did business/accountancy related degrees and have found well paid work. I suppose the one deprived sector of society which has produced a second generation of well qualified and paid individuals is part of the immigrant population where choosing the right subject to study and plugging away at it has given us a lot of doctors and IT professionals .

It's very depressing. I don't know how people manage to get by in the UK anymore. DH and I are both professionals and we lived hand to mouth in London, especially after our first DC was born. And that was six years ago, it's worse now.

We moved abroad and our circumstances changed hugely. But obviously not everyone can do that, we're very fortunate.

Definitely the ever-widening gap between the rich and the poor has seen a shift to the right. It's understandable.

you are onflating 2 things. In a system where a minority of people go to uni (10-15%) then yes the cost can be spread over the population as a whole. The problem with this system is that you end up with almost total immobility in society - those going will be chosen far more by class than aptitude. We've been there before and if you look at the winners and loosers in our current education system it's clear we'd be straight back there.

Or you let all those who want to go (currently that is around 50%) which increases societal mobility. The cost of this is huge - why should it be disproportionally be born by the poorer sections of society when it is still shown that having a degree improves average earnings? If it's not worth it to you to fund your degree, why is it worth it to anyone else to do so? It isn't like there is a shortage of people wanting to get qualified.

It's a bit like grammar schools - fine for a minority to get a good education as long as me and mine are part of that few. otherwise, not so good.

onflating? conflating?

I don't think that's what the PP meant purple. Nobody (or not many) begrudge paying taxes to train doctors, dentists, engineers etc.

But paying for loads of mediocre students to do random or pointless degrees that are of no or very little benefit to society is the issue. Especially if they then never get a job that pays enough to pay off the loan, so they've spent 3 years dossing about at university for nothing.