To think too much emphasis is put on university?

[Fluffy24]

Genuinely curious.

I'm a university graduate but many of my friends have trades and are just as successful in life/earn similar amounts. Equally I know graduates who are out of work and find, for instance, that their media or history degree isn't helping them to find a job.

I'm surprised at Jeremy Corbyn wanting to fund tuition fees (unless he thinks he needs the student vote). It costs alot of money and there are plenty of graduates already struggling to find jobs whilst we have shortages of some skilled trades, such as in engineering, construction etc where a greater emphasis on apprenticeships would be appropriate surely?

Aren't we setting up an expectation that everyone should want to get a degree, and perpetuating the sense that a vocational qualification is of less value.

If we want to ensure we can capitalise on talent regardless of wealth then some courses could be funded (engineering, teaching, medicine etc) where we identify a skills shortfall in a particular industry or sector?

I would prefer my son to undertake an apprenticeship and learn a useful trade than do a 'generic' university degree just because it's expected of him.

Of greater benefit to our whole society would surely be to spend the money on educating children instead.

[Oliversmumsarmy]

So the answer is to force everyone into getting a university degree and a load of debt so when the robots take over they might have a job working for them.

Think I will still advise my dc to be excellent in what they want to do and worry about money and job security and robots 2nd. After all you go to work for 45years+ that is nearly 11000 days of getting up, getting dressed, getting to work, sitting in an office. 11000 days of listening to banal chatter as you get older and older. If that is your dream job great but in the end untill the robots take over I suggest people choose what they want to do for a living and if that doesn't involve a degree then they shouldn't be put off.

I have noticed over the last couple of years a certain trade that when I use them the trades person who turns up is usually ex public school boy. They are ever so posh.

[nakedandconcerned]

olivers that's very naive because they will be doing stuff like that

[Oliversmumsarmy]

Having a high IQ only means you are good at puzzles or working things out it doesn't mean you are academically bright or you necessarily want to go to university.

[likeababyelephant]

Very sad that you think things need to be done so every child gets a degree.
That if you are not capable of getting a degree it is because you lack confidence or you are from a poor unsupportive background. Nothing could be further from the truth.

These are just factors drawn up by intelligence theorists on IQ and educational attainment. Of people are capable but factors are not the same for all, obviously.

[Oliversmumsarmy]

Cant see a robot coming to fix a leak or stick his little robot arm down a toilet to unblock the extra large dump some one did.

[nakedandconcerned]

Another factor to consider is that we are creeping further towards automation in terms of workforce. Lots of skilled manual work will be eventually completely automated. Careers which require degrees are probably in the grand scheme of things less likely to be automated in the next twenty years.

[Oliversmumsarmy]

Something needs to be done in a child's early years if they're not capable of attaining a degree.

Self esteem, gender, ethnicity, social background etc can all have an effect on someone's levels of education

Very sad that you think things need to be done so every child gets a degree.
That if you are not capable of getting a degree it is because you lack confidence or you are from a poor unsupportive background. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Ds is dyslexic and has dysgraphia.

I have spent many hours with dc going through different career paths that suit them , their personalities and what they need to achieve their goals. Not just your df wears a suit to work so that is what you are going to do.

There are so many career paths that don't involve getting a degree that are overlooked or looked down on.

Next time you switch on a light or turn a tap you get light or water because someone without a degree made it possible

[likeababyelephant]

I've seen posts for sales jobs that require you to have a 2:1 minimum.

[justnowords]

Its difficult though when lots of jobs require a degree that didnt 5 or more years ago. I work/in process of leaving the legal sector and am astounded when I see vacancies for legal secretaries with minimum requirements of a degree, preferably law. Its a fucking secretarial position ffs. But in general, coming from a family of mostly tradesmen, I agree, But getting a trade apprenticeship nowadays is ridiculously difficult as they are really thin on the ground.

[offblackeggshell]

I do agree that access to university should not be a given. However it should absolutely not be decided by who can afford it, or who is comfortable taking on debt. I know of a really academic child (looking at A A A) whose parents have just talked him out of university because it will mean taking a loan. He wanted to study a core curriculum subject, and then teach. I think it is really sad he has been talked out of it.

[NonStopDisco]

carefreeeee I used to work in a lab, pay was very low, but they only employed graduates. It was very routine work.
There was a legend going round that an Asda opened near one of the other sites and all the techs quit and started working stacking shelves because the pay was higher.

[Kennethwasmyfriend]

Gender studies has been around for at least 30 years.

[Railgunner1]

Subjects like gender studies and similar tripe need to be shut down

[carefreeeee]

And all this emphasis on degrees is meaning the right people aren't picked for the job. Previously a lab technician would have only needed a levels and it was a practical job. Now there are so many people with PhDs around, most technicians have either that or at least a Masters. They may be clever but there's no one with any common sense around - whereas before you had practical types who could fix things!

[carefreeeee]

Uni should be free but places should be limited according to the number of graduates needed and pointless courses should not exist.

There needs to be much more value given to other types of training and this should start early on in school, currently there is huge emphasis on academic ability right through from age 5 with any talents in other areas being seen as decidedly second best. This needs to change!

The aim should be for everyone to be trained in something and then we wouldn't have so many unskilled workers competing for minimum wage jobs with immigrants, whilst we have to get other immigrants to fills the gaps caused by skills shortages in many sectors.

[engineersthumb]

I belive that the most effective method of improving social mobility in the UK would be a former of compulsory national service. Not necessarily limited to the armed forces, potentially including social care and other services focused on benefiting wider society. It should most certainly involve living away from home and ideally communally. This would really allow young people to experience life outside of their background. Following such an experience most would have a much better idea regarding higher education and career paths. I think being thrown in the mix together for 2 years without any pressure on making life changing decisions, or thoughts of falling behind their peers would reduce the reported levels of mental health issues seen in youngsters today. Had I not joined the forces and in doing so widened my horizons, I would likely still be living in the same town I was born in and struggling to find employment.

[innitprawn]

Personally I didn't just leave University with a degree but with friends, alumni, a network. This network has helped me up the career ladder.

Even though I finished with a 2(II) albeit various reasons behind this - I think having that education - the network - the alumni. The status of my degree - it's a redbrick law degree. My post- graduate where I met my DH!!

So uni gave me soooo much more than an education! Gave me a massive insight into a different way of living.

I was the first person in my family to go to uni. We are an immigrant family. My parents worked in factories and shop floors.

As a result I think of my background I didn't question any thing just listened and learned.

My only mistake. I was 1% off a 2(I) and I should have appealed: I wasn't aware of this - so that's my only regret. But in saying that - there are lots of decisions we make and I'm not unhappy with my life.

Getting a 2(ii) drove me to prove myself even more

[RudeDog]

DH is from a very working class background. Most of the people in his family didn't even finish school.
Bizarrely he was very academic and did a PhD (he can't do the job he does now without one).
I think the fear of massive debts would have made it difficult for him to go at all. God knows what else he would have done?

[FreeNiki]

Seryph cant you get funding and a stipend for PhD?

[engineersthumb]

I didn't attend university, nor did any of my family. Indeed "office work" was for "women and shiney trousers". Somehow I have become a reasonably well paid senior engineer for some of the largest international firms in my field. Most of my colleagues have Msc or PhDs. If anything this makes me regret allowing myself being turned away from a university education as I was evidently capable. I don't want anyone else to feel that regret. Therfore a university education should be available for all. However, there should be other routes available also and where possible opportunities for mobility between paths. The concept that university should be exclusively for those that could afford it is an indictment of social policy. The route I followed into to my profession is probably the result of significant luck, I doubt it would be possible today.

[Toomanycats99]

To me the purpose of a degree was always to make you stand out from other people. When the rates of people doing them are so high then that is no longer enough. I still agree with it where it is relevant to the job but I struggle to see the benefit when you could come out and only get a job that you could have got 3 years earlier. I never went (and looking back can see that my desire to go was linked to the perceived social life not my future employability) I went back to college part time at 24 ish and was far more focused on my goals at that age.

[Seryph]

How about giving us more to support ourselves while we are at university?
Before I took myself to university as an adult I stopped getting my ESA because the government felt my partners £6000 student maintenance loan was enough to pay our rent, bills, feed us, travel and everything he actually needed for studying.

I am highly academic, always have been, and it has always been my dream to attend university, and work for one. Sadly I will never be able to afford my PhD.

[FreeNiki]

Not having a degree and working your way up is all very well until you hit a glass ceiling either at your current job or when applying for a more senior position. At a certain pay grade in most professions not having a degree won't even get you through the initial paper sift.

An old colleague of mine started as a legal cashier at 17 years old on an 11k salary.

11 years later he is 28, his employer paid for accountancy courses, he is on £35k, has a car and a mortgage as he has never had any university debt to repay and has always been able to save.

I as a solicitor earned just over £40k and had debt everywhere. Why the fuck did i bother.

He is young enough to do a degree part time should he desire and then has all that accountancy and cashiering experience behind him.

[Bluntness100]

I agree with you somewhat. I think kids should do what they find interesting but that which also has a career path. If they enjoy it and finding it interesting they will more likely succeed.

Too many kids think university is the easy or obvious answer. In my daughters course, 200 of the 400 kids who started with her in her first year dropped out at the end of it or were kicked out, as you need to pass to be invited back to do the next year. That's 200 kids right there, on one course, at one uni, who made a very expensive bad decision. Kids at a Russel group uni who needed straight As just even to be there in the first place. And bam, one year later it's all over.

That's a huge amount of lack of understanding of what university entails. These days a half way decent electrician or plumber can make way more than some mediocre lawyer, a good history teacher or a decent journalist.

Going to university isn't the only option and often isn't the right one.

[StickThatInYourPipe]

They do but if general educational attainment levels were better maybe it would be less critical, e.g. is it currently being used now to identify those with a decent education with an assumption that if you don't have a degree you can't be very clever. ?

Is that the assumption? Not in my experience. I don't have a degree and earn the same, if not more than most from my year group that went to university.

I also believe experience in the field you want to work in is now respected equally to completing a degree, after a certain level it doesn't seem to matter either way.