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?

I think it depends. DH was the first in his working class family and still the only one - he's 60! For him it was as if he had rejected their values and it really changed their relationship. And it was a big deal for him to go when his parents didn't support him and he had a poor education and had to go back to college to do A levels to qualify. As I say, his family don't value his degree at all, but for DH, it's the best thing he ever did and changed his life completely. I think in those days, it was transformative.

I wasn’t going to say anything about ‘benefit scroungers’ (you clearly have lots of lovely views about people).

But, you haven’t been to uni and don’t have a good job, so have little in the way of academic or professional achievements. Perhaps acknowledge that you’re not in a position to sneer at other people for being proud of their own.

It’s an important marker of social mobility. It’s not the only one but it is significant.

People whose grandparents went to university are likely to have very different income / assets / careers / educational expectations than people who come from families where no one has ever been to university.

It is a big deal to be the first generation in your family to go into higher education. Have a look at the Social Mobility Foundation if you wanted to know more….

I am that person, who was the first on both sides of the family to go to Uni, in the 1990s. My parents did College/apprenticeships, and had good jobs, but I was the first that we know of, to go for a good few generations. I am from an absolute working class background; lived in a council house and went to a big state comprehensive. I got unconditional offers from all the (largely Scottish Ancients) I applied to. This was a big deal. My Grandad had no idea what I was studying, but was always keen to offer tales of 'my granddaughter at Edinburgh.' My brother and sister also went - my sister in her 30s, and my brother two years behind me.

I now have an MBA & a PhD (perpetual student!), and have spent almost all of my career working in Higher Education. For a kid from industrial central Scotland, this is all a pretty big achievement. We even have 'first in family', and 'state school and proud' badges for our lanyards, to try and reach those kind of students/applicants. My uni isn't great at meeting the widening access targets for background, so we have to work hard at it.

I’m really struggling to understand your points. You say that you don’t see it as achievement as not many people of your parents generation went to uni. Would it make it an achievement if many people of your parents generation DID go to uni? I’m genuinely trying to understand the point you’re making here.

Thank you.
That was my story. Ended up at a Russell Group university 20 plus years ago with only student services for advice, no tutors etc (and working part time from 16).

So yes - excuse me if my portrait is hung up on every family member's living room. 😁

It’s not cope I have the qualifications to do what I want to do I’ve been to college already I can go to uni whenever I want and will do in a few years. I am only in my 20s mature students exist

Yes, it's something I'm very proud of. Parents who left school at 14 with no qualifications, and came to the UK to find work. Grandfathers who worked down the sewers and digging the roads. Elder siblings who failed miserably at school. But I didn't. I worked damn hard, and earned my place.

I was educated in a school where it was just assumed you would go to university (it was still free then!) and my parents and grandparents had gone too. So it wasn’t a big thing to me. You did your a levels and you went to university, end of.

So if you didn’t grow up like this I think, yes, it’s an achievement because it’s not the norm. Just like if I had gone out to full time work at 18, with no intention to get a degree, eyebrows would have been raised.

Interestingly, a friend’s family member spoke about Oxford and she was concerned she wouldn’t fit in etc. so these attitudes still exist.

"That means almost everyone is the first in their family to go to uni."

The thing is, that just isn't true these days and hasn't been true for a very long time.

#cope

Not sure how I’m behind the times when I’m still working in the field 🤔

As I said in my post, there will be high achievers but they will be in the minority. You can’t graduate 1000s of students with those type of degrees and expect them all to command £750 a day.

But how do you know that? Does someone have to give you their backstory and then you opine on what they can be proud of?

My point is, it’s a generational difference and not necessarily a massive marker of strong character.

Unless as I’ve said you’re childhood was very traumatic/neglectful

Totally agree. This was my situation exactly. And I’m still met with judgement and snide comments by family and if something goes wrong in life for me, they don’t even try to hide the fact that they think “I had it coming.”

Are you an edgy 12 year old?

Did you mean to quote my comment? I completely agree with you!

It used to be an achievement when only the academically exceptional went to University - that has massively changed now

To your point that it's s generational thing - it is not purely. Who could go had a lot to do with class and economic background - and while a lot of those barriers have been broken down in recent decades by changes in society, every family is different and accessing higher education might still have felt out of reach to many. People from humble backgrounds might be a lot more weary about taking on so much debt, for example. Or not supported by their families, because there's no precedent for it.

Basically, there are a range of families out there between the 'normal' and 'heroin addicted' ones you describe.

Nope. I’m an amused thirty something with postgrad degrees whose family has been to university for four generations. I have no skin in this game, but I know self-soothing self aggrandisement when I see it.

I’ve seen it said on mumsnet a lot “mum and dad were lovely, hard workers but didn’t go to uni and I’m the first”
don’t get me wrong getting a degree is an achievement in general but it’s not extra special just because your parents didn’t when barely anyone did in their day

Come and work a day in the school I teach in. It's in one of the most deprived areas of the UK and only hardly any go on to university. We had a boy last year and his mum was so proud of the fact that he was the first in their family to go. The family live in poverty and it is an amazing achievement. The aspiration in the school is terrible, third generation unemployed and no desire to get out of the situation.

I am in my 50s but I was the first in my family to go - Mum was a dinner lady and Dad worked in a factory until his mental health meant he had to stop. Lived in a council house. I am from a huge family and am the second youngest of about 50 cousins. I am proud of the fact that I went and hope that I have encouraged some of the kids I have taught over 25 years.

You repeatedly refer to 'back in the day' - when exactly is this?

But not everyone will be able to get a “decent job”. You need to look further than your own circle. Just because you see going to uni as a normal thing, doesn’t mean everyone does.

Those of us who were first in our family to go to university (myself at least) made damn sure we didn't have a baby to take along with us. There was no sex in my younger years because no birth control is 100% and I definitely wasn't getting caught with a baby to complicate things. So many things that you'd do differently to those around you to go to university when those before you didn't