To think people are overeducated in the UK?

[Watdidusay]

I am raging about this too be honest and I'm not sure why.

One of the mums at the school apparently lost her corporate job 8 months ago. Found this out today when I ran into her in Lidl in the next town - she was working as a manager there.
We ended up talking later in the day and turns out four of the staff there have masters degrees or above (one has a PhD). Apparently this is a common thing people are doing now as they cant get jobs in their fields
AIBU to think we are completely over educating people in this country now?

Feeling angry I think as DS (18) tried so hard over the summer to get a job like this but am finding out now they are all being taken up by people with lots of degrees!

Knowledge is power how, can one possibly have too much of it?

It's not her degrees/education that would have secured her the Retail job but her previous work experience. And her education has not helped her secure a job in her chosen field now - she could be losing out those roles to someone with less education. If a hiring manager has the option of someone with skills gained from other jobs vs an 18 year old with no managerial experience, they'll take the candidate who offers better value for the salary offered. A harsh reality and indicative of the job market.

I think there is a silent recession in the UK and a boom in AI, with a lot of job cuts in some industries which need a degree/education - meaning these folk will now apply for jobs that don't have a specific education requirement, just to pay the bills.

This indicates degrees and education are not as important to the job market as they once were. And more thought needs to be put into the skills being learnt as part of a degree and how transferable they are to the job market (supplementing with internships, summer jobs etc) when selecting what to study. And I agree with Kemi Badenoch saying we need more Apprenticeships rather than uni places - as these prepare people for trades and give them the experience needed to land a job. The number of people with degrees who can't apply maths in a practical way like managing finances, critically analyse or problem solve, or even write a half coherent report with correct grammar is shocking! I wonder what they actually learnt for the money and time expended.

I'm a hiring manager in a big corporate - hiring jr and middle managers - and never look at the education section other than for curiosity. I base decisions on the experience they've gained and how they interview - which also has practical case studies to evidence their knowledge. Don't think i'm unusual in this regard.

There will be a shift in the skills required in the labour market in the next 20 years as tech takes over more and becomes what blue collar jobs in manufacturing/mining once were. That will change the education model in the UK as well.

Did your son, @Watdidusay, pass the initial online psychometric tests / aptitude tests?

I admire this! When you say you are learning music, do you mean learning an instrument? I've always wanted to play the piano but I'm held back by the thought that I probably wouldn't make much meaningful headway at my age now. (Late 50s)

I totally agree learning should be life long. It's the worst thing about degrees being so expensive now. My aunt who is 25 years older achieved 3 degrees doing two of them in her thirties simply for the love of the subject. Something I cannot afford to do.

Why are the degrees and debt necessary?
Oh that's easy to answer, students are very useful cash cows and university staff want to hold on to their highly paid jobs.

I think people are puzzled because you are completely ignoring two things

One is the reality of how life works out sometimes, despite what you may have decided aged 18

Two is the state of the UK economy at the moment and how we got here.

I would assume that the woman was given a manager's job because she also had experience in retail.

I don't think a random PhD will enable you to get a job in Lidl.

Yes, and even if she didn't have retail experience, persevering through a 'random phd' and whatever work she's done to support herself through it and pay the fees is going to have put her in a much better position skills and experience wise than an 18 year old.

I don't know the woman's age but she likely got a scholarship to fund her PhD as student loans for post grad are a relatively recent thing. I still think most PhD students are funded via scholarships or self-funded.

I don't understand why the focus is on her education level when the issue is clearly the current job market.

Reducing the average education level of the population further would be a ridiculous answer to this current problem.

You don't need a PhD in mathematics to work in Lidl, but having a PhD in mathematics does not preclude you from having other experience and skills that would enable you to work at Lidl.

Surely you mean overqualified rather than over educated. I’m not sure you can be over educated.

And therefore you concluded she's overeducated rather than there being a lack of jobs for highly educated people?

Only if you equate education with earning capacity and job status.

All the education I have had has enriched my life. I wish I had been able to study more when I was younger.

If you take a Gradgrind approach to education, then I suppose you’re right.

If so many people are over educated, how come Reform are leading in the polls?

My son is having the opposite problem, he has been rejected from entry level jobs and jobs that don’t require degrees for being “overqualified” with his Masters Degree. The assumption is that he’ll leave for a better job asap which may be true but jobs in his sector are free and far between so it is taking a long time.

Lots of educated people are complete dicks. Lots of intelligent and educated people support Reform.

The people around Trump are highly and expensively educated.

It’s more productive and useful to engage and understand.

Lots of intelligent and educated people disagree with me. They are, of course, wrong.

We have a major problem in our economy and it’s really hard for young people in particular. But I don’t think educating people is the problem… if the people you spoke of had no degrees they would still be competing for the same jobs as your DS. I doubt the phd levels maths was the thing that clinched it for the person who did get the job.

This was the same situation as my wife, when I met her 35 years ago. She was working in a fish and chip shop because her foreign Biology BSc wasn't recognised in the UK. Five years later, she was able to pass a Biotechnology MSc and then work in the appropriate sector. You are absolutely right, sometimes people have to do what it takes to survive.

Yes absolutely,

I started learning recorder about a year ago (I play a big bass recorder) and joined a u3a group which is mostly other retired people like me who took it up in retirement.

i’m not very good but I enjoy it!

STEM degrees cost more to provide to British students than Home tuition fees provide. Were it not for Overseas tuition fees, STEM degree courses would run at a loss. In Schools without sufficient numbers of Overseas students, they do.

Sadly we are not as highly paid as you might think. To land a lectureship in the research intensive universities, the entry rung on the ladder of permanent academic staff, competition is extremely fierce. A PhD and at least one postdoc are required - that’s at least six years of very hard graft on a student stipend and then an okay one. Nowadays many do two postdocs. New lecturers tend to be about 30 yo minimum.

All that slogging and they typically start on salaries in the low to mid £40K’s (unless they come with even greater experience). For a 50-60 hour work week.

The more educated a person, the more left wing they tend to be.

I worked with my local university on Brexit. This was a vote of education levels. Ditto Reform. Most Reform voters support Brexit.

It wasn't their Masters and PhDs that got those people their jobs at Lidl though.

I don't think that is true. I am educated ro Masters level and I was more left wing at school, and certainly before spending 20 years in the workplace. I'd describe my self as slightly right of centre now.

The push for young people to go to university was simply a policy by the 90s Labour government to get them off the unemployment stats and benefits.
After the nightmare of the 1980s and the failure of the Tory Youth Opportunity Schemes (remember them?!) together with major industrial decline, we had millions unemployed and nowhere for the young to go (sounds very similar to today).

The universities were able to charge fees, so lots of enticing new courses were laid on, the so-called ‘Mickey Mouse degrees’ and all that happened was that the 16-18 year old unemployed became the 21-23 year old unemployed.

Add in the continued industrial decline and the lack of investment for emerging sectors and we’re back where we were in the late ‘80s, only everyone is older.

As a recruiter I agree the job market's difficult in some sectors, but honestly think this is just as much about people going to Uni without any clear aims around what they want to do with the qualifications

Again and again we see "they want the Uni experience", but it's a pretty expensive way to go about avoiding paid work for a few more years, the more so when you add in gap years and so on