To not understand people who talk about being the first in their family to go to uni like it’s a badge of honour?

[Kyrgyzstan]

Sorry if this sounds dismissive of their achievements but isn’t it less of a rags to riches tale of personal achievement and more of a generational difference? I mean barely any of our parents generation went to university and now it’s pretty much expected if you want a half way decent job.

Obviously if you were raised by heroin addicts and managed to still get good grades and go off to uni that’s different but the children of ordinary parents who just didn’t go to university talking about it like a huge achievement sounds a little strange to me?

But you persist in this narrow view of barriers. Lots of people who were not abused still have barriers. Having parents who didn’t go to uni is not in itself necessarily disadvantage, but it can go hand in hand with a lot of things that are a disadvantage. I appreciate you’ve had a lot of replies and might be skim reading and missing things, so I’ll ask this again. Do you agree that poverty can be a disadvantage?

Let them! If they want to feel that way, it shouldn’t impact you

However, there are so many options now that university is not the only way. It gets people into huge amounts of debt that is hard to get out of with the changes to fees and student loan interest.

I am the only one in my sibling group to not go to university and I am the most successful career wise currently.

It doesn’t matter if they’re more mature or not, they’re there to complete their degrees. I had an older colleague in uni who didn’t even know who Van Gogh was in a design degree, being older and mature did sod all for her as she ended up dropping out shortly after because she was objectively unprepared for this specific area.

Obviously some degrees will always be harder than others and university is more accessible nowadays, but that will never take away from the fact it’s an achievement. You keep banging on about heroin addicts, but there’s all kinds of different backgrounds to overcome. An achievement is an achievement.

I may not have a degree yet but I have a level 3 qualification so I don’t have “little in the way of academic achievements”.
You were looking for ammunition, it’s not quite socially acceptable to insult someone for having a mediocre job or no degree but if I didn’t have a job at all you would have feee rein to tell me what a waste of space I am

OP has anyone been to university in your family, siblings, cousins etc?

A level 3 qualification is just a level equivalent isn’t it?! How can that be an academic achievement if a degree isn’t?!

with regards going to uni in 2025, on its own i don’t think it has to be, my mother had very little money when I was growing up but there would of been nothing stopping me going to uni if I hadn’t gotten pregnant. They tell you all about how to apply in college and sixth form and obviously there’s student loans.
However poverty that goes in hand with neglect (not bothering to take your children to school on time so they don’t get a proper education, untreated lice so they get bullied and develop poor mental health etc) is different.

I never said a degree wasn’t an achievement I just said it’s not shockingly unusual to be the first in the family to have one when most of the older generations didn’t go

Being first in family does give you a disadvantage. Its not up for debate and doesn’t really matter what you think. It’s just FACTS

Now now I have a LOT of cousins, one is at uni right now

Hopefully one day you’ll go too, it’s great for broadening the mind.

But you haven't. You haven't gone to university, gotten in, done the work, navigated the system, gotten the grades etc etc. it's something you haven't done

I came from a very deprived background, and yes I was the first person in my so called family who went to university. I left school with no GCSEs, but I now have a masters degree. I had a very rough time in the care system. I wouldn’t usually disclose any of this as it isn’t relevant, and I spent enough of my life being viewed through a particular lens. But since you asked, it’s less about generational differences as it is about the systemic barriers which are in place which can make gaining cultural capital in form of a degree incredibly difficult. It’s commonly known that education (cultural capital), which can be translated into money (economic capital) is a very traditional way in which social mobility occurs. To say it’s down to generational differences is an odd way to look at it tbh, I don’t really follow the logic there. There likely wasn’t any social mobility prior, or they wouldn’t be the first person in their family to attend university. Additionally, besides that it’s really a very vague metric in which to judge, working class and marginalised backgrounds are incredibly diverse, and don’t all share the same values or cultural beliefs. They may range from being openly abusive to poor but incredibly emotionally supportive and present. People who mention it are likely just proud of what I know from personal experience is incredibly difficult to achieve.

So that's it? You have a cousin who is proud of being first? Who went to university instead of getting pregnant at 15? And you think it's no big deal?

I have a level 3 qualification so I don’t have “little in the way of academic achievements”

That is, most definitely, little in the way of academic qualifications. I just checked and 68% of UK adults hold qualifications at Level 3 or above. The fact that you have repeated that so many times is hilarious. 😆

it’s not quite socially acceptable to insult someone for having a mediocre job or no degree

Yet, I’ve just done it several times. You just haven’t picked up on it because your reading comprehension isn’t very good. I will break it down further into language you might understand: you have a mediocre job and no degree, you are in no position to say that people’s pride in their degrees (for any reason, including being the first in their families to get one) is ill deserved. You, in comparison, have achieved nothing.

I’m afraid I can’t be any clearer than that without the use of crayons.

I am irrelevant I didn’t plan this thread to become a biopic, it’s a fact that barely anyone went to university in the older generations and now a lot of people do hence it’s pretty normal to be the first in your family to go. Just like someone driving a car a hundred years ago would be the first in their family.

OP do you just generally struggle to be happy for people?

All your comments come across as such jealousy. Going to uni is a huge achievement. Being the first in your family is massive. As mentioned above I am the first to own my own home in mine. All my family and friends are delighted for me.

These things should be celebrated and we should be delighted for these people. They are happy about it because they are bringing a different life to their families future.

You seem quite a bitter spiteful person. Are you ok hun?

A cousin I barely ever see, I have absolutely no idea if he pats himself on the back about being the first in the family and considering the fact that his father the man my aunt married may well of been to university so he may not even be the first for all I know,
The attempted psychoanalysis is getting strange now

Yet none of the statistics you've tried to quote show that at all. You've STATED it then failed to prove it.

What have I said that’s bitter and spiteful? I’ve never even said getting a degree isn’t an achievement I just said it’s not unusual to be the first in the family to go when barely anyone went back in the day. It was just something I was thinking when reading comments on this site from people talking like it was a massively unusual thing

Barely anyone in your social circle.

Maybe not unusual but unusual enough that you haven’t done it.

I am really proud to be the first person in my family to go to university (30 years ago). It may be "ordinary" to some people, but pretty recent ONS data shows that I am from a place which comes 320/331 for local authorities ranked by qualification levels, and currently live in the area which comes 317/331, so actually no, it's not "ordinary" and I know that my grandparents would have been beside themselves with pride if they had lived to see it. (But sadly areas of low qualifications also tend to be areas with lower life expectations and they had all died by the age of 63).

Well, that was me, but I think I usually only talk about it in one context: the incredible resource of having parents who can guide you through the process of getting to university. For me, uni wasnt planned at all and it was only through a number of ridiculous pratfalls and sheer good luck that I ended up there. Whereas my daughter glided in on a raft of maternal wisdom!

Actually, just today my dd showed me a video clip of a boy she used to be sat next to in secondary, before he got expelled. It was one of those sit-the-good-girl-next-to-the-rowdy-boy fixes. Anyway, the clip was of him on TV talking about how he got his life back on track after a hideously abusive childhood, long journey through the care system, being expelled from multiple schools etc. He is now reading law at a top uni. I don't know where he got the inspiration and guidance to get there, but surely there was someone who stepped up to support him.

How can your niece be the first if your DM went and your DH went?