I went in 1991. I never heard a single person call it ‘uni,’ except on Australian soaps. It gave me the impression that more kids down under went to university and perhaps it wasn’t the same thing.
I did a second degree in 1994 at a different university and never heard ‘uni’ there, either.
My sister was much younger than me (15 years) and she always talked about going to ‘uni’ as though it was something she might do, however she had no intention of doing any work for her GCSEs, let alone anything further. She left school with few qualifications and was unemployed for a few years, musing on whether she should go to ‘uni’ instead. She didn’t seem to link ‘uni’ with ‘entrance qualifications,’ but that didn’t surprise me, as by then, it seemed you could get into the local college (now calling itself a university) with hardly any qualifications at all, and she had friends doing just that.
Whatever the truth of the situation, from my experience, it was hard not to assume that academic ability was no longer a pre-requisite for university. It seemed to be an option available to everyone (which I support) but it seemed to lack academic rigour. Perhaps there are arguments for that, but I don’t understand them.
I remember working part time to fund my degree from 1994-98. I worked in a hospital alongside student nurses studying for their degrees. The university I attended wouldn’t host their degree course because it didn’t consider the standard high enough. One student showed me her dissertation when it was finished. Her ‘references’ section was written in red felt-tipped pen and contained the words ‘various medical textbooks.’ This was acceptable on her degree course, it would t have been acceptable in mine.
That’s just my experience.