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.

I felt the same, but it was 1996 so before tuition fees. It was a selective all girls' (grammar) school and we were pushed so hard to go to Uni. The "careers advisor" was basically a University advisor.

I went along with it for ages but couldn't decide on a course and didn't really want to leave home either and there was no commutable uni nearby. So I chose to enter the career I was considering straight from school.

I told the careers advisor this and he barely spent any time with me after that. It very much came across that if I didn't want to go to uni I was on my own.

There were about 180 girls in my year at school and about 15 of us didn't go to uni!

Many of whom that did have gone on to have amazing careers and are very high flying, but if everyone had had to pay tuition fees there would be many more that would be in the same position as OP and her contemporaries.

I have spoken to many young people in my life over the last number of years and have always advised that unless their chosen career path is massively advantaged by a degree or it's necessary, then they should consider something else. The apprenticeships scheme is much better for many chosen careers nowadays.

Totally agree @Schleep. I was really encouraged to go, but didn’t. I got an apprenticeship and haven’t looked back since.

I remember all the push at the time, but I just said to my parents - before interest it’s £30k+ - there isn’t a single subject in this catalogue I am sufficiently interested in to spend that kind of money on it. Luckily my parents supported that.

I think Uni is still necessary for some jobs, but I do think most people would do better on an apprenticeship.

I'm a lecturer at university and I agree with you.

University is presented as a mandatory step on the career ladder, and in a sense it has become that. But university is ill equipped for the role of training up tomorrow's managers and workforce. It's a system designed for a very specific purpose - to transmit academic knowledge to those interested enough to dedicate three years learning it, or to those who absolutely need to have that knowledge before embarking on their careers (doctors, lawyers, psychologists, engineers). The problem is that this purpose often gets in the way of preparing young people for the jobs that they actually want, but can't even interview for without a degree.

70% of my students would be better off working. They don't want to learn my subject, they don't need to learn my subject, they are just paying a fortune to live in crap accommodation and write essays they don't care about, just for the certificate at the end.

The labour government of the 2010s pushed everyone to university in order to fudge the unemployment figures. It's a farce. It's ruined university for the people who actually want to be there, and it's ruined the early 20s of the people who don't want to be there. It's also lead to a poorly trained workforce.

So many people I know have media studies/psychology/sociology/business management degrees and are saddled with university debt. None of them are working in these fields and most are on under 30k a year. I feel that so many degrees are such a waste of time but I do acknowledge that university and living away from home equips you with certain life skills.

I attended uni at a similar time to you and I totally agree that anyone who was slightly academic was given the hard sell about attending university. So much so that back then at the age of 17, I had the preconception that anybody who didn't was not academic.

DS took the decision that there was little point in going to university and running up hefty debts just to get a qualification which would be of little practical use to him in later life. At the time I was dubious about it, but with hindsight I think he was absolutely right.

@GiraffesAtThePark Also there’s a difference in having a target of 50% in higher education versus investing in specific areas which will benefit society.

Completely agree. We keep complaining about our skills gap but not tackling it

It was far more common to go straight into work or an apprenticeship at 16 when I was young (53 now). Only about 6 of my classmates went to university, it was right for them and they did well.

I think universities are a good way of keeping unemployment figures down, bringing in money for the government and private landlords/companies. I would love to see a change back to apprenticeships and more technical colleges. I think a lot of young people feel so overwhelmed by what they perceive is expected of them when they leave school that they just give up. I hope that a time will return when people who are not high earners can actually afford to buy their own home. It must all feel so out of reach for young people.

Let her focus on that and you focus on yourself,
I have only ever heard the phrase ‘University is a waste of time’ out of people who didn’t go, not out of anyone who did, I suppose in a way it makes them feel better about themselves and their decision not to go.
I went and i’m extremely happy that I did, if I hadn’t had gone I would have regretted it and I think my life would have been very different

Yes and No.

My adult kids both do jobs relevant to their degrees, and literally nobody can do those jobs without a degree.

I myself didn't go to Uni, and was able to work my way up to management, however, when that job ended in redundancy, all of the jobs that I looked at with comparable salaries required a degree! I was very stuck at that point! I started my own business instead which is thriving, so it all worked out in the end, but still!

You are 100% right. It was a way of massaging unemployment figures and turning education into a business model money-making scheme. The way they keep shifting the debt boundaries is immoral. I hope a whole generation refuses to pay. My DC had a small legacy of 30k from a relative and I suggested they use it instead of taking out loans. But they chose to keep it for house deposit instead. I'm still not sure if that was the best use of the money.

If I were 18 & making those choices now, I would definitely be looking at degree apprenticeships.

You can pivot into post grad study for many courses if needed, and many are shorter than Undergrad, plus scheduled in a way that you can work around them, so I would definitely be looking at that to avoid debt (& I work in a high paid industry where degrees are essential).

It's mad to me that only around 45% of people have good (5/C +) grades in both English and Maths at GCSE, but that for a long time there was a push to get 50% of people going to uni.

And there need to be more routes for further study as adults.

I agree, it was like educational grooming. I had been prepped for it since my early school years.

We were also told such nonsense like that we could be whatever we wanted to be, which is just such a stupid thing to convince children of.

I worked at a university for 5 years, have since run my own recruitment business for another 5 years - I'm more than qualified to form an opinion on degrees and recruitment.

I absolutely do not regret the decision to drop out and am not seeking validation; its more likely that those who spent £££ would have a skewed viewpoint.

I am, however, FULL of flu so not forming my best sentences or thought processes 😅

Honestly, I loved Uni, had a blast, best time of my life and really enjoyed it. I would go back in a heartbeat.
I graduated in 2010 with a major/minor.
Since then I have done 3 other degree level courses (paid for by me).
Having several degrees has not improved my employability levels, but it has given me skills that I have used in employment.
I don’t pay anything towards my student loans and they will be cancelled when I turn 55 anyway. They do not show up on any financial documents and when doing my taxes for my Self-Employment, I simply tick the box to say I have a certain type of student loan (as dictated by the Student Loans Company) and therefore I don’t pay anything as I earn well under the threshold for repayment.
Having said all that - uni is not for everyone, many of my friends failed out of uni or failed to complete their work on-time and received nothing but debt they are forced to repay (because they didn’t achieve anything). So yes, not for everyone and definitely not an easy way out either. To me, children should be given all the information and given a couple months leeway (maybe freshers term?) to see if they suit uni life before committing to it.

Several European countries offer free university education, so the problem is tuition fees and student loans in UK rather than the choice of attending university

I think you do have a good point, OP. The cost (and debt) is absolutely staggering now.

My DS1 is in his first year at university, and he is thriving. He's studying history, and obviously really absorbed and stimulated by what he's learning. He's also doing beginner Mandarin and advanced conversational French because he wants to, not as part of his degree. Financially I don't know if it will have been the right decision, but in terms of intellectual and academic development, it's right for him.

DH feels very differently
DS isn't sure about Uni but DH says he is worried he will be the only one of us without a degree if he doesn''t go. Not sure what that matters but hopefully DS will get a Degree Apprenticeship and everyone will be happy

Yanbu, at all. And not only because of the debt. My daughter started uni (BCU) to do a vocational degree and dropped out after the first year because it was completely disorganised, the quality of the tuition… when the lecturers bothered to turn up.. was appalling, and she felt she was being treated like a complete cash cow. When she left she started an apprenticeship and is loving it and learning loads all while being paid for the work she is doing. It’ll take her a couple of years longer to get to where she wants to be but she’ll still get there. Unfortunately, she now has £13k of debt for fuck all.

Uni is a complete scam in a lot of cases.

All of this.

Even as a teenager at the time, I could foresee the pitfalls of Tony Blair's "50% to university" mantra.

I worked at the police when the "policing degrees" were being rolled out at the expense of traditional training. Noone in the sector believed this to be a good thing.

I now work at a post-92 university* and obviously slap bang in the midst of the long-term effects of HEI expansion (which was obviously not going to be sustainable).

*Could be any university however bar Oxbridge.

Going to university was hands down the single best decision I ever made in my life for multiple reasons.

That said not everybody needs to go to university and not every job needs a degree.

And the level of teaching and interaction now is dire. Because tutors who once typically had full time jobs with permanent offices, so we're free to see students, chat with them, visible on campus, are now on zero hours contacts at insultingly low pay and shoot off ASAP to prevent the hourly rate dropping even lower by being cornered by students wanted additional advice or references etc.

One thing is certain, the fees are not being properly invested in tutors' salaries or provision for students, the two sets of people on whom the institution relies.

Yanbu Op I could've written your exact same poet including dropping out early. I went on to get a full time job in the I industry I'm still in many years later. I just worked my way up and committed early to this one route. So many wonderful things have come from doing that. I've been enabled to learn languages - all paid for, sat and passed many exams, made some incredible friends and met my other half. A couple of my mates who did the same are also now with companies in the city that they started off with. I wish more young people were taught the value of working and apprenticeships, rather than told that uni is the only route. I do agree some vocations need a degree but it shouldn't be the only option sold by schools.

I agree.DD17 is very academic and wants to be a barrister.Uni absolutely the right choice for her and she has a love of learning.
DD15 would be getting saddled with debt to go to uni because it's expected of her when actually she would do better working.

I didn’t really know what I wanted to do at 18 (in 2008) but I’m very academic so uni was the obvious choice. It gave me the opportunity to move to a new city and live abroad for a year. I now earn more than any of my friends who didn’t go to uni and paid my loan off in full last year,

Maybe I picked uni because I was “funnelled” that way, maybe I picked it because it was the right choice for me. I do think there should be an element of personal responsibility though, even at 18. If you’re bright enough for higher education then you should be bright enough to understand the implications of that route, even if it is strongly encouraged.

That said, I’ve never really understood the Labour (?) policy that university was for everyone. It’s not, and that attitude has churned out more grads than we ever needed, hence the number of graduates in non graduate roles. University is for everyone who is academic, wants to learn more and thinks that they will increase their earning potential by going no matter what their background is - which I think is a very different message.