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.

Excuse my sassiness but I can't help myself - did you go to uni to study Armchair Psychology by any chance?

(Apologies, I'm ill and that's the first half witty thing I've come up with all week)

I’m honestly not sure what I’ll advise my kids when they get to end of school.
My Uni days were among my best, I just loved it and many of my closest friends were made there, it was where I finally met ’my’ people having grown up in a small town.
I work in management consultancy and couldn’t have gotten on the initial graduate scheme without a degree.
I graduated in 2002 though so my debt was much lower and long since paid.

Yes, it was started as a scheme to get 50% of school leavers into further education - which lowered the 18-24 year olds unemployed. This was by the then labour gov. voted in 1997

It meant that polytechnic colleges, which had in the main been securing HND courses, night school etc could convert to university and charge, then also charge for foreign students

We have a scam of university education which is an 18 month course at most but over 3 years for many not all. The means LL and Universities can make money along with the local economy being boosted

previously 18 year old would leave college and start work, possibly attend college one night a week to learn their trade in higher education alongside work

Nursing is a really big scam having to have a degree, then get auxiliary staff in to cover what a nurse would have previously been performing in the 1970s.

Thank you for expressing this better than I could have done.

The young person in their mid 20s I know who has done the best and is in a good career did not go to university.

I would have a lot less people going.

I think the push to get so many into universities over successive governments since the 80s is utterly ridiculous. Most degrees now aren’t worth the paper they’re written on.

Degrees should be reserved for the academic elite and those who are particularly skilled or have promise in a technical or artistic area. I agree everyone else is wasting their time and money. I still believe it’s a ploy to keep unemployment figures down/delay entrance into the workforce.

If university education had been kept for a small number of individuals there would be more government funding available. The university system wouldn’t be full of people teaching and paying for Mickey Mouse degrees.

Another factor to consider is that there are now so many more opportunities to explore subjects of interest outside of university - online courses, many of them free, forums, Ted talks and so on. In the past, you either went to university or you missed out on a lot of learning, culture and history (unless you were dedicated enough to sit all day in a library in your spare time). So, fewer people going to university doesn't have to mean that young people are any less rounded or educated as individuals. Technology has changed everything.

YANBU, but I think it's tricky because I think the university-alternative routes into good paying jobs are not plentiful enough to cope with a significant exodus from university. I'm also really concerned that uni will become just for the rich and deepen the divide into high paying jobs further.

I was lucky enough to go through uni on the £1k fees per year and my loan of £14k was paid off fairly easily by my early 30s.

Working at a university is not the same as actually attending and gaining a degree, proudly saying that you attended, what you studied and the profession that you are in now because of it, how would you know what that is like when you didn’t do it, you are just assuming things

I and most people that I know are very happy that we went and the professional status that we have achieved by going, as I said in my earlier post, if I hadn’t have gone I think it’s something that I would regret for the rest of my life.
There is also a certain snobbery around people that didn’t go to Uni and I’m glad I don’t have to deal with that, I know some people who do have to deal with that and because of it regret not going, but that’s only a very very small reason for going

To add to this

Ive worked int sesame job full time and part time with people that have been to university for 3 years and have a debt - but are preforming the same job as me without prospects. Ive now moved to working for myself, but they are still in those lower end paid jobs tat don't need a degree and being managed by someone that doesn't need a degree. Lovely people but what was the point?

I'm not disputing the data that says graduates earn more but unless they’re adjusting for educational qualifications at 18, it’s kind of self selecting because they’re not comparing like with like ( they’re comparing outcomes of ( roughly) the most academic and least academic and attributing difference to degree). They need to compare what would happen to the same person if they did a degree or didn’t.

There’s also the complication that more people doing degrees means employers require degrees where they didn’t previously, so part of the earnings bias is basically manufactured- it’s not “this job requires skills that only a degree can impart”. We’ve created this really artificial and expensive route to employment.

YANBU.

It worked well for me - I was always very academic and walked into a good grad job afterwards. I went before tuition fees were so high and had debt of only about 15k and close to zero interest rates - it paid itself off in less than 4 years. Very lucky.

My sibling however was not academic and for the life of me I don’t understand why our parents and school pushed them into a degree when they were so unlikely to ever benefit from it. They got a 2.2 from a poorly ranked university and job-wise they don’t even really count as a graduate for most employers. They have a fulfilling and enjoyable life now, but not connected to the degree. “Fortunately” I suppose because of their low salary they don’t pay back much of the loan / graduate tax so it’s all kind of irrelevant to them.

I look at people like me graduating now and wonder how they will cope. The salaries they start on in these grad jobs in London or other big cities look great (in fact, half of Mumsnet would be telling you how they can buy a detached house, support 4 children easily and go on two holidays a year for that) but in reality when you factor in taxes, the loan repayment and crazy rents they can’t have much disposable income.

I do think we should be sending fewer people to university and it shouldn’t be the default option.

Yep me and all my peers feel the same! And it’s true! My parents believed it too, even though neither of them went to uni they thought there would be zero hope for me ever getting a job without a degree. It was pushed so hard by the school, I was rebellious and nearly didn’t go just to piss everyone off but in the end I went too.

I don't (don't) employ anyone without a degree in my industry, but I don't think that the teaching in the degrees is fit for purpose anymore.

I spend 6-8 months training up the graduates.

I'm starting to wonder about the value, maybe I could get a great A level student and train them in 8 months potentially.

I think you missed the point about degrees and recruitment

Totally agree OP. I never went (also a bit rebellious!), but own my own business. My DD went, but is in a job that I managed to get her. Didn't even ask for her degree. She owes far more than when she graduated purely because of interest. My DS never went. In a well paid job and just been headhunted. Uni is the biggest scam of all

The problem is that very few if any professional jobs are open to people without a degree. It's ridiculous that someone with a classics or music or biology degree is accepted into a legal firm training contract or investment banking but someone with with 3 years experience of working with people or in the community or doing a multitude of other things in those three years that prove resilience, aptitude, intelligence, social maturity is not. Until things change young people wanting a professional career are stuck needing to get a degree no matter how unrelated to the job it may be

I left school in 2008. I did well in GCSEs and have several teachers try to push me into sixth form and uni. I said no and went to college for account ancy, got my first job at 18 AAT qualified and my companies have paid for my CIMA qualification.

I have earned good money from 18-32 with no debt and I'm fully qualified. Could not understand why they were trying to get me to do two wasted years of sixth form, then uni for accountancy when I come out I'd still be less qualified than I am now!!

Some professions require a degree but there are a lot of "Mickey mouse" degrees out there that do not come out with a job at the end of it.

^ this. my grandmother was a finance officer In schools abroad from years of Experiance in offices/PTA by the end she'd moved away & was basically unemployable because qualifications had changed

Really ruined her in the end & she had been so capable at the time

But most high paying jobs are not available to you. If you want a profession they rigidly demand a degree seven if it's in some unrelated subject

I've thought for some time now that if the government made a one year break mandatory before applying for the majority of Uni courses, young people would get a taste of working life, see potential career paths more realistically (not just the job they're working in, but those of their mates too as they would presumably discuss it).

It could increase motivation/reduce drop-out rates and assuming that the year had predominantly been spent working and it could provide a contribution towards the overall financial cost of Uni although it does depend on the individual family circumstances.

I think there'd need to be a raft of exceptions as higher level Maths skills are liable to decline over a period of non-use which would make for a difficult first year at Uni whilst they were regained at the same time as needing to cope with even more complex material.

Medicine/Dentistry/Nursing etc presumably needs an annual influx of newly qualified staff to keep the NHS afloat so that would be another exception.

Could a university keep itself financially solvent by having a year of admitting mostly overseas students however, to make up for the lack of UK fee paying students ?

I agree OP.

It would also help to have applicants with grades in hand. Easier decisions for Unis ?

You were. Blair and his government wanted as many young people in university as possible because it’s not just a source of higher education now but also an indoctrination point and we see the results of it every single day right here on MN.

I agree with you OP. I think uni has increasingly become a bit of a racket and a way to addle people for many years with unaffordable debt (call it tax if you want).

I went myself and actually switched courses after year 1, due to picking a really pointless humanities degree and then went on to drop out after not enjoying the second choice either! At the time my parents and friends were all ‘omg you’re ruining your life!’.

I just knew it wasn’t for me - sitting around in stuffy lecture halls for years, accruing more and more debt and having no idea if I would even get a job at the end, especially one that was even relevant to my studies.

I’m now a high earner in a senior exec role where neither of the degrees I studied would have made any impact.

I’ll be supportive if my kids decide to go to Uni, but I will make sure they know about all the other more vocational options and hope they make wise choices.