Are things harder for millennials?

[squidwid]

Many of my friends don't own houses and they're in their 30s. They did everything that society asked of them and still they're not making headway.

I know so many elderly people that live in 4 bedroom homes worth £400k plus. Obviously there is nothing wrong with that but families should be able to afford those houses so things can move on. No one can afford to buy them...

You also have it wrong about Classics. It is regarded as a very decent humanities degree, plenty of Classics graduates in the civil service, financial services, Big Four, education, media, academia etc.. as well as the more traditional museum and archive work.

One thing that is true is it is regarded as an "easier" degree to apply for to get in to Oxbridge as so few state schools now offer the required A Levels it is a bit of a shoe in your private school kids.

You said that OP seems to think she might have met 'normal' people in a Humanities degree at what sounds like Oxbridge. That's extremely unlikely.

I suggest you keep track of what you write.

I was directly responding to you when you said that those from “council estates” are more likely to study medicine than classics.

I think Oxbridge is unlikely to have many people from working class (particularly if you mean lower working class) regardless of what course you look at.

I'm truly sorry you find this such a challenge to follow.

I'm truly sorry you find it necessary to be so rude and condescending, not to mention flat out denying you said something that’s there plain as day. That level of debate was unacceptable when I did my degree. It seems standards have slipped.

Emotionalstorm has been on several threads where we have clashed ....... and her stories are consistent, so whilst no one can be sure of anyone and what they say on a forum, i think she is genuine.

I also don't find it hard to believe people can be removed from others struggles, being rich or poor doesn't matter or your education, people get caught up in their own worlds and don't see others, the worst are often those from poor backgrounds who become wealthy, they seem to think that if they could do it, anyone who didn't is lazy and feckless.

Then there are the super rich imho they can never relate to normal people, they just pretend too... like Sunak, Macron or that awful woman who wore a £10k watch whilst talking about NOT giving teachers a pay rise.

When you say from “your experience” what do you mean? Is your experience in the area vast or fairly limited? Knowing “quite a few” people in that situation doesn’t mean it’s representative of society as a whole.

In my experience of working with literally thousands of children who are applying for uni, I disagree with you. The vast majority of those applying for any course at uni are from the wealthiest 50% of the student body. Those who apply for uni from the other 50% tend to do either less prestigious universities (Strathclyde or Caledonian vs Glasgow) or less prestigious courses (nursing vs medicine) and those choosing subject based degrees (like humanities) as opposed to career based degrees (like medicine) are generally doing so with a particular job in mind, like teaching, rather than just because they fancy the subject.

What you are saying might be true of a private school or a very affluent public school, or a small leafy suburb in southern England, but is certainly not representative of the 6 large secondary schools I have worked in during the last 11 years.

Around 50% of the intake in my year at my uni were from state schools. Yes the bursaries offered by both my college and the university were very generous (I don't know what they're like now ten years on). Yes I had friends who were from less affluent households. Did they spend all day talking about it in great detail? No. I referred to being a science student because we don't spend as much time debating about politics or economics. I know the historians and classicists were more passionate about current affairs.

There is a much higher correlation between going to private school than prestigiousness of university at the law firm I work at.

I know I'm lucky and others don't have the same opportunities. I might vote another party at the next election. I'm considering it after chatting to people here on mumsnet because it made me focus on the bad stuff going on. The first past the post system has put me off in the past. I'm in a bubble because as I explained above I tried very hard not to think about it because it was depressing (from pro bono work, seeing homeless people around London and knowing how some of my friends grew up) but I'm open to hearing other views. I don't want to be nasty about it either.

@pixie5121 may I ask what your role was at the universities?

They are quite complicated issues. Children whose parents pay school fees (which I think is 20% by the time you get to sixth form, and about 8% otherwise) tend to be very invested in the education as it is costing them £18k a year to pay for it etc! They also tend to be in jobs that pay better than others for which you need better qualifications on the whole. Although genetically two very high IQ people have a slightly less IQ child (studies show) it will not be 120 and 120 produce 80 IQ. It is more likely 120 and 120 produce a 118 one or whatever other metric you want to use to measure the child. So for starters usually there is both a home etihc of working very hard for exams because of how much of the parents' money is going into the fees coupled with parents who went to uniersity themselves, may be are brighter than the average 100 IQ with a child who is too so it would be surprising if those children didn't do quite well at school.

That can then follow over to adult life and career choices.

However compared to many countries the UK does provide quite a lot of opportunities - where I live in London loads of people are from abroad, the borough is minority white now and many of those immigrants have children who were exceedingly hard in state schools to get good jobs in London.

As ever there are a few of us MN lawyers on the thread. There are plenty of other careers too; but just looking at law as the profession is so keen to be fair and open to all it is compulsory for firms to produce a survey each year of where people went to school and much else.

https://www.sra.org.uk/sra/equality-diversity/diversity-profession/diverse-legal-profession/ shows that 23% went to a fee paying school (you have to scroll down the link to social mobility). Although it then says 7% go to private schools in the Uk that is a bit misleading as it is 20% at sixth form level. Therefore as most solicitors need A levels and go to sixth form the 23% going to a fee paying school is about what you would expect to be fair.

You can of course play around with statistics in all kinds of ways eg as many women who marry rich lawyers and are lawyers themselves may not want to work 20 hour days for 1- years when they have a baby not surprisingly more of them than men go part time so don't become senior rich partners. There are other reasons too of course.

@Xenia There is a lot of research to show that well off average IQ children at 5, earn way more than the top IQ of poor children. You do not have to imagine the scenarios you have, this is very well researched.

And most poor children do not go to sixth form.

I know. It is a very complex picture with no simple answers and with white working class boys from NE England where I am from doing just about the worst of any group. I am not sure it is just money but the lack of aspiration and perhaps working less hard than some other groups in school.

https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/203/education-committee/news/156024/forgotten-white-workingclass-pupils-let-down-by-decades-of-neglect-mps-say/

This is a very under reported issue as far as I'm concerned. Im glad you mentioned this.

Seen this down here in some parts of Cornwall/Devon, especially rurally, its, as the report says, opportunity both in jobs and education & generational, if your dad doesn't work/not in the picture, its hardly encouraging for anyone.

Role models are very important.

I don't think its not working enough, more that the attitude is "Whats the point?"

I am no Tory at all but Robert Halfon is brilliant in that role as chair, we need talented people like him in cabinet but i suspect he would show many of them up & he isn't a brexitier.

I am also in the west country, and it is a huge problem. Anecdotally, a friend of DS, who was bright but definitely deprived (the eldest of six, with a deaf, and illiterate dad working as a lumberjack, at way below NMW -- he was moved out of the family house into an unheated caravan at 16 to make space for the younger children) tried and failed at education post GCSE. No help available whatsoever to give young J a leg up. It was a catastrophic waste of ability, even if the job eventually achieved wasn't his dream career. A life on Tesco's fruit and veg aisle because that was the only place he could get to work by bus seems an appalling waste.

Thing is, even spending your life working in a supermarket, you should be able to afford to live. People doing absolutely essential work (like supermarket shelf stacking) shouldn't have to live in the depths of poverty they live in. And I think these jobs deserve much more respect than we give them.

And I think these jobs deserve much more respect than we give them.

Agreed. Memories are very short, these are the people who kept the country going not so long ago.