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?

See, this is about perspective. EVERYONE who I know of my parents’ generation went to uni. My grandparents met at uni. For us it’s very very standard and has been for generations.

However, I am self aware enough to realise that this isn’t the case for the majority of people and that for lots of people, uni would have been ’above their station’ and unimaginable even one generation ago. If you’re achieving something that your parents or grandparents wouldn’t have dreamt of, of course that’s an achievement.

I suppose the real question is why this bothers you, OP? Let people be proud of what they want to be. It hurts no one.

Why does it matter to you.

Stop pissing on people's chips.

You're behind the times. Former polys rule the roost in some "newer" degrees.

My friend charges £750/day with performance bonus with her poly marketing degree, and my sister the same with her poly sports science.

I don't think she is hating at all. I think she is trying to reassure herself that she won't have put her own kids at a disadvantage.

I'm probably older than most on here and my brother and I were the first and only in that generation of our family to go to university and it was a big achievement, there weren't anything like the number of places there are now and if your parents were 'working class' it just rarely happened (no positive discrimination, probably the reverse). My parents had absolutely no chance of a decent education they both left school at 14 as most children did then, their pay was needed to help support the family. How soon we forget what it was like in the past.

In what day? The 1980s when university was free and grants were available and bedsits were cheap?

It's harder now to.go than it has been for decades 🤨

Oh, so you haven’t even achieved this ‘achievement that everyone has’? So, you have no idea what you’re talking about?

This is funny. 🤣

I think you are getting a hard time unfairly OP, they are not saying it's not an achievement to go to uni but more nowadays it's not more of an achievement to be the first in your family to go. Years ago it was but now Uni is much more accessible than it was. This isn't taking anything away from anyone who goes, and nothing wrong with not going. It's just not a massive deal to be the first.

Apologies for the inaccuracy. However, I stand by the rest of my comment. It was indeed a rarity for working class children to go to university and it was an enormous achievement. It is also the case that more jobs require degrees than they used to. I don't see how I'm boo-booing anyone by stating facts! Nobody landed on the moon before 1969 - is that equally controversial?

It is a big achievement. My partner was the first in his family to go to uni and no one in his family understood why, he had a lot of negative comments, and also no one in his family had been through the university education system before so he had no one to ask about how it all works. He's done really well for himself and it's a huge achievement because he didn't have anyone 'paving the way'.

Conversely I also went to uni/law school (I'm a solicitor) and felt I was really helped by my family members who also went to uni. They taught me what to expect.

Also, not sure why you say 'barely any of our parents' generation went to university' - I'm your age and both of my parents went to university (as did their siblings), and most of my friends' parents also went to uni!

Yep! This is a huge thing OP has overlooked, previous generations did not pay uni fees and even had grants whereas now to go to uni you have to be prepared to take on a substantial level of debt.

It really isn't just a generational thing. The majority of 18 year olds don't go to Uni so it's still a minority!

I think you’re underestimating the effect of parental expectation, or the lack of it, OP. I remember talking to my dad about this once - he was principal of a primary school in a relatively deprived urban area; not heroin addicts or alcoholics, for the most part, just ordinary working class people with no history of higher educational attainment. Before each year group headed off to secondary school, he would speak to the parents of particularly bright
kids and tell them how much potential their child had, and that they should aim for university. He said that in most cases, it was clearly the first time the parent had ever considered that this might be a path for their child - it was just not within their frame of reference at all. I don’t know how many of those kids made it to uni, but it would be nice to think that some of them did.

Conversely, I grew up with the assumption that I and my siblings would all go to uni - it was always a case of “When you go to uni…”, not “If.”

I was the first in my family to go to uni. I don't brag about it, it's just a fact. Most of my schoolfriends got pregnant in their teens like you OP and let's just say I think I made the better choice.

Until Blair's decision to cut unemployment by turning universities into corporate sausage factories most people (90%) did not go to university. Until after the 1944 education act only those at grammar schools (which were mostly private) or public schools (all private) got to go to uni. By the 70s roughly 10% of the population qualified for a university place and both my late DH and I qualified and were the first in our families (probably - I may have a collateral ancestor in the nineteenth century) to go to university. Yes, it was a badge of pride. You needed to be on the far side of the intelligence bell curve to do it and stick at it. Now, virtually everyone goes, to such an extent that my DGS is not going but is intending to take up a trade (unlikely to be overtaken by AI any time soon - can't see a bot plumbing in loos etc though they may make the parts) and this is seen as a positive move.
As it happens, the generation that grew up post WWII until the 70s (the Brexit generation, in fact) were the best educated this country has seen, entrepreneurial, clever, intelligent and open to ideas but not so open minded they accepted nonsense. Most did not go to university but they took apprenticeships (7 years of hard, badly paid graft), took HNDs and diplomas in engineering and accountancy etc and were as well-qualified and as well (better, for they read, virtually everyone read) educated as the current generation. Going to university was an elite thing - now it looks like learning a trade is going to be the elite thing. But that's why people say they are the first to go to uni in their family - it shows that there is greater opportunity and equality and that is a good thing. (And no, neither I or my late DH were raised by heroine adicts - what a thing to say about pioneers of their generation!)

😂You come across as so bitter btw

I am not sneering plus im only mid 20s so plenty of time to go to uni, im just saying uni is a rite of passage these days back in the day it was very rare to go to uni, hence when I see people say they were the first in their family to go to uni like it’s a massive achievement it feels a bit odd, kind of like someone in 2010 bragging they’re the first in their family to own an iPhone.

Of course as I said if they were brought up in care or abusive families and still managed to get good grades and go to uni that’s different

If you are in your mid-twenties then i would day it definitely was common for people of your parents' age to go to uni. I am in my early 50s and know barely anyone who didn't go.

My parents are your age and they and most of their friends went to uni!

How can you be criticising people for being proud of being the first in their family to go to university if you have not been to university? 😂

No it isn't. You deal with the generational expectations from your family that you WONT go to university because it feels so exceptional. My parents knew I was exceptionally gifted as it opened doors for me at school. My mother when I went to university was STILL astounded as her idea of what I'd achieve was 'i thought maybe you'd get a good job at the credit union or in the civil service, maybe a book keeper, I never for a second thought you'd go to university' the you open doors for others because after me each of my siblings followed and my older siblings went back to education later to get his degree.

There are a million small things against you from the expectations that you find work asap to contribute to your home, from affording everything you need for uni, reference books are so expensive and I was the only kid in my class using the library books without my own at home. And you work alongside university to afford the basics while you see friends whose parents are professionals already sending weekly funds and the idea they'd get a job when they could concentrate on their studies is ludicrous.

The fact you don't understand it's an achievement is one of the big reasons why it IS, you forever feel like you're acting the part as your life experience is so different from everyone else you're around you actually hide so much of yourself. My husband and iw ere both first in our families and it brought us together the shared experience of all we'd had to teach ourselves.

Neither me or my husband ever thought about uni being something out of reach or hard to access. Our parents had gone, they took us to open days or at least paid our train fare, had money to support us when we were there and told us all about uni life and knew roughly which A-levels were needed for which course. We just fell into uni as the next logical step after school. That is not the same level of achievement as someone who did not have have all those advantages and family expectations and had to work hard to do something brand new for their family with less guidance and often less resources.

My DS has a friend who was on FSM and is currently at Cambridge, he was the second to go as his older brother went to Oxford, it certainly wasn't easy for him or part of the course or expected.

Then you are very much NOT the type of person the post is about.

I'm with you op, people seem proud to be the first in a family to accrue massive debt to get a degree that may or may not get them a decent job. Tbh nowadays most unis accept all kinds of Alevel results. Not like has to bad AAA. Great if you want it but it is not a huge achievement.

I say that as a parent of dc who went to uni plus dc that didn't. All equally fabulous.