to feel like we were scammed into going to University?

[Schleep]

When I was at school (completed sixth form 2009), if you were academic it was assumed that you'd go to University. The whole thing was pushed incredibly hard on us and, in retrospect, was quite propaganda-like - we had external people come and do loads of assemblies on how amazing Uni Life was, lots and lots of talk about how University would guarantee us high paying jobs and we were repeatedly told to not worry about the debt, the interest rate is practically zero and we'd never even realise the money was coming out.
(Of course, when you're in your teens, debt looks like free money anyway)

Fast forward 10, 15 years later - and all my friends are saddled with huge debts that they'll likely be paying off for the rest of their lives.
A lot of them have had their repayment contracts changed so its no longer written off after a certain time, the payment terms are not as favourable and interest rates have gone up.

I dodged a bullet by being rebellious and dropping out after just 1 term, and that term was just before the fees tripled (at the time, you'd have thought I was ruining my life the way the University/everyone responded.) and I feel incredibly lucky. A degree would not have increased my employability and I have no student debt.
But I have friends and family genuinely upset at the hundreds they're forking out each month for something they didn't want and (at least in their cases) they simply do not use.

I find it baffling that the system was funnelling people out of the workforce, into unnecessary (in many cases) education and saddling people with huge amounts of debt.

Well you would have stayed at the old fee level if you began on it, but anyway it's not for everyone.

Very glad I went though. Did English and Philosophy. Useless for jobs, but not jobs I wanted anyway. I came out a more sophisticated thinker than I went in and that's what I wanted. I'm a writer and it was useful to me. I didn't have a fantastic time for a lot of it (had to work a lot of hours in pt jobs, was always short of money) but it was important for the life I've lived thus far.

My dd is 35 and was the first in our family to go to university and she really regrets it. School encouraged her to go as she was excellent at the subject she ended up studying. She is very shy and didn't make 1 friend. I wish she had told me how isolated she felt as I would have encouraged her to quit. It's not had any impact on her career. She had no interest in pursuing the subject when she left.

There are two great history books that maps this out. How and why education for girls at private fee paying and religious all girls schools was horribly deficient compared to co-Ed bog standard comprehensives. The author stops in the mid1980s, but much would apply to anyone graduating in the late 1980s to early 1990s.

Ysenda Maxtone Graham
Jobs for the Girls- How we set out to work in the typewriter age 1950-1990
Terms and Conditions- Life in Girls’ Boarding Schools 1939-1979

Oh this old chestnut...

The fact that you think it was 'propaganda' that 'forced' you to go to university clearly shows that you could have benefited from learning the critical thinking skills that most university degrees teach (especially humanities and other degrees that are considered 'worthless' because they don't lead directly into some corporate drone job).

To the PP above who complains about graduates not being taught critical thinking - again, humanities degrees are essentially all about critical thinking. And given the state of politics in the US right now (and indeed globally) we could do with more people questioning the tripe they're fed by the press/ politicians and the ability to tell the difference between opinion and fact.

That being said, if you want to be a plumber or have a brilliant multi-million-pound tech start up idea at 18, then yes, university is probably not the best use of your time and money.

I agree. Went to a grammar school, where it was a given that you went to university after sixth form; all conversations within school were focused on assuming that was the next path for all pupils - noses very much turned up at the few who weren’t going to uni.
And yes you just get a student loan to cover the costs, no big deal, there is no interest/it’s minimal (but let’s face it, most teenagers then didn’t know what interest was to be able to understand), when in fact for 10+ years after uni, the interest applied every year meant that I was only paying off £100 a year! It’s likely I will never pay it off now.

Totally agree.

Thanks Tony Blair.

DH left school after his A levels in 1991. He went straight into the merchant navy, working on oil tankers. Although no longer working on those, he had stayed in oil & gas and earns close to 300K.

I went to Uni, did a law degree etc and worked as a high street family lawyer for 10 years. I never earned more than 40K. Not all lawyers are well paid.

This is very true. And also more than a little bit sad.

The number of people going to uni went up.

But did the number of jobs ? And were the courses people studying consistent with the jobs that were being created ?

As a general statement, I think if you do a numerate degree, think engineering or hard science then you have skills that can be harnessed in a lot of different areas. Non numerate if your degree is going to add value then you generally need to be very good at your chosen subject or specialised area. Electronic engineering can add value in a number of different jobs and workplaces. English Literature hardly any. There are some exceptions, architecture, law, medicine, pharmacy etc. But not many.

It's as important as ever to go to the best possible university with the best reputation you can. Because the cost of going there is likely to be similar to one of a poorer reputation.

So confused about people saying “it’s just a tax”, as if that makes it ok. The rates of tax in this country are 20%, 40% and 45%. We are saddling A WHOLE GENERATION with tax rates of 29%, 49% and 54%. And that’s ok somehow? When did such blatant ageism become a thing? I’m on plan 1 and have lower taxes for life than someone born 3 years later with the same degree. How is that fair??

A lot of it must surely come from parents too though? Aspirational/snobby or just not wanting their child to be the odd one out who doesn't go. Agree though it seems like a huge waste of time and money for many who are not academically bright enough to benefit, or will waste their time doing non-subjects, and who could do much better in apprenticeships or vocational training. I think if I were that age now I'd be looking to go into some kind of trade!

I agree, I left school and went to uni in 2012, part of the reason I went is because my sisters went and it looked like fun… lol, but a big part of why I went is because it was so heavily pushed by schools and I agree.. was a bit like propaganda, if you were in any way academic, then uni was pushed upon you at my school. I have a decent paying job but I didn’t actually need to go to uni for it and tbh do get annoyed every time I see £200 out of my payslip for my student loan. I won’t massively encourage my kids to go to uni unless they want to be a doctor/lawyer/dentist etc where you need to go to uni.

The "uni or fail" attitude is so annoying, and it starts even before A-levels. My DD is doing her GCSEs this summer and has applied to go to college do a Level 3 BTech in a practical subject in lieu of A-levels because she struggles with exams and wants to follow her passion. Yet she's had a couple of teachers tell her she should be doing A-levels if she wants to go to uni. Why? She can still get enough UCAS points to study for a degree IF she wants to. Why shouldn't she do a practical course in a subject she loves? One even suggested that as parents we were letting her down by not helping her apply to standard sixth form and said they'd do it for her if we weren't helping! She gave them short shrift.

You are not the first lecturer I hear saying this.

I've had my doubts about the whole education system in this country for years, from secondary onwards, and this - sadly - just confirms it.

I don't know what can be done to change things, but change they must.

I left my state school in Lanarkshire a year before you and this was not my experience at all. My school encouraged girls (at least the clever ones) to study science subjects and apply to university. My BSc course was roughly 50/50 male/female. In my industry an MSc has for many years been the absolute minimum entry requirement, most of my colleagues have PhDs.
I've had a successful career so my degrees have served me well but would I go to uni now if I was 18? Probably not - I couldn't live with the student loan debt hanging over me.

I think it's one of those things that has become an established "fact" over time.

People who go to university generally do well. My parents were of that opinion and I am sure my grandparents were too, because in their day only around 10% of people made it to university.

It's going to take a long time to change peoples minds, but will happen slowly but surely. The lack of trainees in skilled trades is the key.

When lawyers see bricklayers earning 60K a year with zero debt while they are on 40K the message will get across.

But these "beliefs" similar to ones like buying housing is a one way bet become established over a long time over several generations, and take a long time to die also.

Yes exactly. I’m in my late 30s and was disadvantaged compared to those with their free degrees a decade or two older (not to mention cheaper houses!) but I am SO, SO fortunate compared to the generation that came after me. It’s only on googling the subject today that I discovered that the rate of interest on Plan 2 loans goes up as you earn more - trapping more and more people in the cycle of a never ending “graduate tax”. The more recent plans don’t even have this feature - so it really is just graduates from a certain few years of birth get higher taxes for life to punish them for having the audacity to earn more.

University should be cheaper but should also be on offer to a smaller number of people. The state can’t support cheaper education on the levels that are currently offered.

Those saying you learnt soft life skills / became more sophisticated / became a more critical thinker etc - for most people that just comes with leaving home and becoming an adult?

for most people that just comes with leaving home and becoming an adult?

lots can't do that due to housing costs though. I'm a Londoner & went to uni nearly 20 yrs ago. Myself and all my childhood/school friends moved straight back home for a few yrs.

The problem is so many jobs still require a degree. Even if they don't actually require them, it's a CV sifting tool.

My younger daughter, who is 17 and in the first year of a health and social care course, has her head screwed on. She wants to be a paramedic but is aiming to for the apprenticeship route. She has twopart-timee jobs and a motor bike whilst learning to drive. At least she can pick up plenty of hour of lifeguarding whilst going through the application process

Theres a lot of “woke” indoctrination that goes on at university, the jobs market hasn’t changed much, and a 22 year old is looking down the barrel of massive debts for many years, even decades. What’s not to like? There is a book called the Great University Con, which paints a picture of Universitys as a kind of corporate Ponzi scheme . Martin Lewis anlways presents it as a kind of “don’t worry about it tax” but it’s a lot of money to pay back. Also personally I would find the kind of psychological impact of facing that kind of debt intolerable at age 22. I left university in 1987 with £2.5k debt and really struggled to pay it all off (in fact I didn’t).

Unless you are genuinely academic or it’s vocational I really do not see the point.

Exception is if your parents are financing the costs significantly. I wonder how many are? Does anyone know?? It makes adult children probably more dependent on their parents.

There are many other ways form one to develop our intellect if that is what one wants to do. Eg in the past, writers of the 1950s eg Doris Lessing, John Osborne were massively well-read and talented and all finished their formal education when young.

Of course you could say it’s a chance to meet interesting people 🤔, have some freedom whilst you’re young, and maybe party a little. But I can think of a lot of parties and holidays I could go to for £50k+.

It doesn’t really, I can tell by just having a short conversation with someone whether they have likely been to university or not and this is obviously without them telling me or talking about work

My generation were absolutely sold down the river. Promised "You can be anything!", pushed into Uni told to follow our passions, then graduated in the middle of a recession, berated for having stupid degrees in silly subjects and no real world experience, advised that we should have learned a trade, and then they changed the terms of our loans and the interest is accruing faster than we can pay it off in our low paid jobs which apparently we're not grateful enough for.

In addition to being told that our moral fibre was destroyed by the cheap plastic "participation trophies" which we never asked for and only took to be polite.

I'm thoroughly pissed off.

Doris Lessing left school at age 13.