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!

Good news! I thought it was 9.

All this talk about 'useless' university careers annoys me. The university experience is about so much more than just the subject. It's about leaving home and parents, but done in such a way that's there's an instant new community and a safety net/ framework around it. It's about meeting and navigating relationships with new people from all sorts of different backgrounds and cultures. It's also about learning to 'adult' and take care of yourself - food, laundry, healthcare etc. For some it's a chance to reinvent themselves, away from the constraints of childhood friends and family.
Yes, this can be done without the need for a university course, but it's harder and happens less often.

Except for highly vocational subjects (medicine, dentistry, computer science etc) lots of employers don't care about the subject you studied. They want to know if you're hardworking, a good organiser, a team player etc.

@Legacy "All this talk about 'useless' university careers annoys me. The university experience is about so much more than just the subject. It's about leaving home and parents, but done in such a way that's there's an instant new community and a safety net/ framework around it. It's about meeting and navigating relationships with new people from all sorts of different backgrounds and cultures. It's also about learning to 'adult' and take care of yourself - food, laundry, healthcare etc. For some it's a chance to reinvent themselves, away from the constraints of childhood friends and family.
Yes, this can be done without the need for a university course, but it's harder and happens less often."

I agree but employers don't care about that stuff. They can just employ a mature adult on less money instead.

@Watdidusay Highly educated retail worker here OP 👋🏼 hello!
Did I accumulate a lot of debt and go to a lot of effort to get my education? Yep 👍🏻 Did I plan to work in retail? Nope. Unfortunately within 3 months of finishing university I had to move home to take on caring responsibilities for a family member. Jobs in my newly qualified field were not available near me, I’d have had to relocate and was unable to do so. So I worked retail shifts locally with a company who were able to help accommodate my caring needs. That lasted nearly 6 years.

By this time I had been out of university too long with relevant work experience to compete with the new graduates.

Sometimes life happens and you just have to go with it.

I know a few academics who have no ambition. One is a carer for the elderly. Doesn't want to get a different job and is happy and content with his lot.

I think some people just enjoy studying but that doesn't mean you will use that knowledge or expertise to earn a living. The two are quite different tbh.

Indeed, sometimes life happens when you are busy making other plans . That’s why a flexible non rigid mindset is a great life skill - some of the people I’ve met in life who are very rigid about careers, partners, homes etc are the ones who end up not coping if life goes to shit or turns out not what they expected

I have a PhD. I worked in academia for a while, then left when I got bored. I then worked in a corporate field and made loads of money with long hours, lots of travel and lots of stress. I quit that recently. I'm now working as a gardener which is great fun. A PhD isn't a life sentence. You can use it for a bit and then do something else. Sometimes that something else might be working in retail, where you do your hours and fully clock off! Bliss!

The problem is that there are so few jobs now .Most youngsters cannot get a "little job" at the Co Op or wherever .When I left School .so many kids went into factory work, or simple jobs in offices ,filing and so on .Now most customer Service roles in finance or whatever expect a high level of education and training .No one is "overeducated "some 100,000 school leavers leave without any qualifications at all.Also some 5.1 million 16 to 24 yr olds lack the reading skills of an 11 year old!

I'm sorry this happened to you. I hope you are happy with how things turn out and you have the opportunities to advance.

This is more how I envisaged the situation when I posted - I thought there should be better opportunities for grads if we are sending them to university.

Most commenters are saying graduates choose retail over especially professional corporate or vocational careers though, or that they lost ambition after graduating, so maybe you are in the minority and I hope you are happy or are on the road to happiness.

I agree: need a job done? Ask a busy mum!

I think it speaks volumes to her credit she isn't too proud to take such a job, and I suspect her employer thought so too. Good on her.

I think raging is a bit much OP. She needed a job and got one.

it’s likely that life experience, skills, ability to see something through (masters) and likely some leadership as well as earned her the job. We all have some transferable skills. She’s probably reliable and because she has kids they know she’ll need the money and stay on.

degrees and study can also be for fun and curiosity. Those Mickey Mouse ones (what are these???) may be ones for enjoyment or to experience uni life.

for funding - who knows?? Same as everyone - mix of loan, family, savings, scholarships etc.

what we choose at 16/18yrs is different from what we want or can do in our 40s. Life changes and shit happens essentially.

UK is definitely not over educated. You only have to read some of the threads on here to know that.

good for her working hard and studying and getting a job.

It’s quite belittling to say “just retail” or to suggest retail is for young ones!

i expect if your son works hard he can all be a manager in Lidl.

But university is a choice. Surely it is up to those of us going to check out the opportunities, not for others to provide them so we don't get disappointed?

To misquote the great aphorist 'Anon': If You Think Overeducation Is Expensive, Try Ignorance

But hey who cares !! as I posted on my previous post that other country’s are now a better bet - it’s not a real job it seems for many unless you get your hands dirty and you need to be just applying for any old thing - people were told to that, even on mumsnet - they now have and now posters are objecting because their young adult kids can’t get supermarket jobs etc because intelligent well presented people needing to earn are nabbing the shifts.

Love these stories!

Well, judging from general standards of spelling and grammar, not to mention often levels of sheer ignorance of all sorts, I certainly don’t think most people are ‘over-educated’.

PhDs are a rather different matter.

Where are so many getting funding, if they are doing them? A niece in America managed to get funding for hers (eco-science) but lost her last govt. funded job (not at all well paid anyway) because of Trump’s - or rather Musk’s - mass sacking of any govt, employee who hadn’t yet completed 12 months.

A Brit nephew had his PhD (neuroscience) funded, but has since never managed to find any employment paying enough to live on, even at a very frugal level.

A friend’s son is taking forever to finish his (non funded very esoteric-arts-subject PhD) and I suspect that he’ll have the same problem - if he ever actually finishes it.

TBH it’s not a path I’d want to recommend to anyone ATM, though admittedly the floppy hat you get to wear at Doctorate graduation ceremonies is very fetching!!

Elite over production is an issue I see evidence of everywhere. But to say we are "over-educating" is perhaps not fully accurate, the quality of education is declining. But the number of people who feel they have jumped through the right hoops and now the doors are slammed in their faces are unfortunately growing.

"Elite overproduction is a concept developed by Peter Turchin that describes the condition of a society that has an excess supply of potential elite members relative to its ability to absorb them into the power structure. This, he hypothesizes, is a cause for social instability, as those left out of power feel aggrieved by their relatively low socioeconomic status."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_overproduction

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@Crikeyalmighty Completely agree. At the end of the day, now working retail and having some flexibility in my working allows us to have the lifestyle we do with having young DC. I’m not going to apologise for taking “an 18yos job”

Exactly.😂

It depends on the degree. Having a degree in a ridiculous subject doesn't make you any more employable than the next chump.

The problem is not enough jobs. Why? Because this government doesn't understand where jobs really come from. They don't come from 'government job creation schemes'; they come from entrepreneurs taking risks and starting businesses. If the government keeps taxing them and doesn't offer any support, they just won't happen.

I agree, I have a business but used to be an internal recruitment manager/HR .there’s an awful lot of parental pressure to go too, particularly if you’ve paid a bomb for your kids education , I do think however a really big issue was companies using ‘degree’ as the filter to get in at all, when an awful lot of jobs don’t really need it . When I think about when I left school late 70s - I went to work in a bank, rule was 5 o levels A-C , ( and I was 16) my friend went to work Asa tracer atan architects- same requirements, another went as office admin in a big manufacturing plant - same, another as a junior payroll and HR assistant at the coal board as it was - same . Several went into nursing - Hence even though I went to grammar school at least 70% left at 16 straight into jobs- the remaining 30% were all aiming at doctors, scientists, lawyers , teaching etc- so it’s bit of a viscious circle unless you can get a good apprenticeship at 16 or 18 -yrs many do see it as a ‘fun doss ‘ to avoid work especially if they have parents dolling them out cash, plenty do it because many job options these days are limited without a degree

Last time I checked the UK's national average literacy levels were below Cuba's, so over education is hardly the problem.

It's the wrong education that's the problem. Far too many students doing non-marketable degrees but still fully expecting to walk into a £35K a year graduate role. One of DD's friends achieved 3 Cs at A Level and studied Fashion & Business Administration. Not surprisingly, she hasn't bagged a role at Vogue and has been working at Costa since graduating 2 years ago.

There are only a very limited number of graduate jobs and they'll go to the brightest applicants who studied the most rigorous courses at the reputable universities. Just like they always have.

In answer to your thread title: looking at the majority of Reform voters and their reasons for voting Reform, I'd say they're not educated enough. More seriously though, I don't think people are overeducated (no such thing). I think some people have meaningless paper qualifications which often don't bear any correlation to "education" (not saying this applies to the woman you're talking about).

The most crucial element, though, is that formal education isn't just or necessarily a means to a well-paid job. This isn't even a lie this or that government, or society in general, has sold people. There's very little causation between levels of education and being well paid, outside of professional jobs. Some of the richest people in the country left school at 16 or 18 and have no university degree. The point of education, proper education, is to know more and have better thinking skills. This is vital for ALL aspects of life, not just getting and keeping a job. The right education can certainly lead to prosperity, but bullshit education can and generally does lead to the opposite.

Don't be angry on behalf of your son. Teach him to think critically about how he's going to get from where he is now to where he wants to be by his mid-20s. It's not about PhDs or degrees, necessarily