Do you have a good job because of your university education

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like the government says people do?

Peachy I think gpoing to university now with all the debt it entails and no prospect of a good job would be a luxury difficult to justify for many students..I can't imagine borrowing 12 or 15k purely for academic self esteem

Also i was expecting more people to say that they had good jobs without going to university

I didn't gain any financila advbantage from mine for one reason and another which is a great pity now as I see it was a relatively rare commodity at the time i graduated!

Well yes the good job is important as I want to teach, the degree is essential. But it isn't JUST about the job, is it? I mean, you never know what will happen in the next ten minutes, let alone between signing up and graduating.

And whilst I am looking at £18K of debt (gulp), I know loads of married adults on my course who can cover the costs of the course and their dp or dh is keeping them in food / housing anyway. Not everyone gets the huge debt, and if you've maybe been at home for a while, the living cost without a wage might not hit you hugely.

I do think the other thing you have to look at is lifetime earning: if you graduate and get into a job with loads of non- grads, but you get it ten years younger than them, that's significant too.

I agree with what others have said here. Some people can study and get something out of it, its not an indication of your intelligence. DH started a degree course in Computer Science and left half way through, firstly he wanted to earn a wage and secondly he could'nt see what relevance the stuff he was learning about would have on his chosen career. For him, it was a wise mood and he now has a very good well paid job. And is in a position equivalent or above his peers with a degree. He also got a good job a lot earlier than his peers as he had so much more real time experience. Personally, I didnt really have the opportunity to study for a degree and by that age I was a bit fed up with education and wanted to be out earning etc. I was also in a very good job before I became a SAHM. A friend of mine who is a Personnel Manager in a large co said that in his experience a degree helps to get that first job and that after that its useless and just goes on experience. Also, people without degrees generally have gotten where they are through a long hard slog and really did start at the bottom, whereas with a degree you generally dont have to start at the bottom. So I guess swings and roundabouts and depends greatly on what industry you are in.

At the risk of sounding like an old hag, I think things are a lot different now than they were 'in my day'. I went to college (polytechnic, not uni, but did an academic degree) in the early 1980's and then you could just bum around for 3 years and come out at the other end not that much worse for wear (not that I did that of course!)

Today, I think there's so much more hanging on your degree... if I were to lumber myself with a £20K debt at the very same time that I'd need to be starting a pension plan/buying my first home, I'd want to make bloody sure that I worked hard and got the most from it.

I came out of college with a 2:1, having had a lot of fun and living three totally carefree and irresponsible years away from home, thinking I was the bees knees and the world was my oyster. Getting a job was a bit of a reality check. I don't think my degree helped me practically, I would definitiely have been able to take the same employment path I have done without a degree, but I wouldn't have missed those three years for the world. In fact, I wish I had been a bit more irresponsible because you sure as hell can't be when you're paying a mortgage and have two kids to support!

Part of me hopes my boys won't want to go to university. Firstly because I don't have a clue how we would afford to support them; secondly because I'd hate to see them start their adult life in so much debt (there's plenty of time for that later on); thirdly because I think today you can get just as much career enhancement by vocational courses and on-the-job training; and fourthly because I'm not sure it is so much fun these days for an 18 year old. I'd rather fund them to travel the world for three years.

...and slightly on a tangent, can anyone explain to me how the proposed student loan/fee system ensures that more lower income people will apply to go to university? It's what Tony Blair says so it must be true, but I guess I'm just too thick to understand.

Nope - started work at 15, worked my arse off, got head hunted last 3 times and earn more than any of my mates with a degree.
Still wonder if I missed out on all the fun & madness of Uni but so happy where I am in my life now I don't mind.

Wordsmith - I've not worked it out either.

Seems to me that if you have a very low income (less than about 15k) you do get a bit of help but other than that you're stuffed. Tony's reasoning is something to do with not having to pay the fees at the time. WTF is that all about? You still have to pay them later when you are trying to afford to live independently, pay a mortgage/rent and start your pension.

I personally think that anyone who can get a degree in today's climate is putting themselves at a disadvantage if they choose not to go.
having done quite a bit of recruitment myself, it is too easy to discard everyone without a degree - because you know that a certain amount of selection (includng self selection) had already been done for you. You know that a certain academic level has been achieved, that the person has had to consistently reach standards, has a certain level of motivation and ambition and so on.
I fear that you would always be answering questions about why you DIDN'T go.
not saying that is right or wrong, just reality. BTW I was always most impressed by mature students, esp OU. I think if you have the motivation to do something like that then you're worth employing, in whatever capacity.

My brother didn't go to University, left school at 16. Did a City & Guilds Mechanics course, whilst working as an apprentice in a garage.

He's 35 now, his skills are very much in demand (earns around 50 - 60k a year) which I think is brilliant as he was completely written off by all his teachers.

Wordsmith you said what i thought

My dd1 gets all the help available on the current system but will still have a huge debt, if my son went next year he would be eligible for the full system of grant and fees paid but would still end up with a huge debt.

I'm fairly confident that it won't be a burden on dd1 but I beleive that for ds it would just be the start of a massive debt which would spiral out of control.

On the other hand ds is a people person and he might gain a big advantage on the who you know network, but it's a gamble.

Yes, I slogged my guts out last year to finish a two year course in one so I could get in before next year's fee change. Right now the debt is feasible because of the way the repayments work, and because I am wanting to teach a shortage subject. However, I don't have to take fees of £3K a year into consideration: mine is for living (four years) only. I do seem to get a good amount in grants / childcare that is not repayable on top as well, which helps. If we earned under £15K a year we'd get even more, in bursaries from the Welsh Assembly / Uni etc.

I would have the same job whether I had been to university or not and indeed some of my colleagues who do really well are not graduates but it does go down well with some of our snobbier clients if you have a degree on your business card even though we have also taken professional qualifications because they know what the letters are for a degree. Neither DH or I actually use the degrees we took becuase mine was in German, his in Physics so pretty specialist. We are both working class and at the time we went Mid-1980s, I would say approx 30% of the students were working class and they worked alot harder and did well afterwards. Even though my career was not affected by my degree I still think I gained alot by mixing with so many different types of people but would I risk so much money on it now (I'm not sure - I was on a full grant), therefore I can only see it putting off lower-paid families and I would probably not have gone because my parents would have been worried about the debt. A great shame!

I agree with you about the worry of debt for less well-off families, fsmail. I can also see that there is going to be a clear class-divide in what subjects students choose to study. I'm not convinced that students from poorer backgrounds will be prepared to put themselves in that much debt just to study a subject because they happen to like it ('art for art's sake', if you like). So I can see that the kind of area I teach in is going to become the preserve of the better-off, ex-private school kids, while the people from poorer backgrounds are going to focus more on vocational-type degrees. A two-tier system by any other name!

I too went to university in the mid-80s and received a grant, and I came from a family where a university education was certainly not an 'expected next step' after school. I feel very lucky to have been able not only to do a degree for the sheer love of my subject, but also to have been able to go on and pursue that as a career (and hopefully inspire some of that love of my subject in others). I find it very depressing that for today's teenagers it's going to be that much more difficult to benefit from that opportunity.

Nothing whatsoever against students from private schools, by the way. I just don't like the way in which people's opportunities are being restricted.

Well met hubby at uni. so just for that it was worth it!!

When it comes to job, it worked great for hubby as he was a law student and went to bar school. Though it took a while to repay his student debts, he couldn't possibly earn as much had he not studied.

As for me who did biochemistry... not quite so well though I had a great job for the first 4 years, DS came along I gave up work and degree is now pretty much worthless!!! and to be honest jobwise thought i liked it never paid all that much compared to DH! I depends highly on the subject studied.

So all together... I'd obviously do it all over again, I loooooved studying. Had I not been to uni I would still be in my home village in France, and I would be stuck working in either the local factory or making goat cheese for the market!

Both my brothers studied as well and did very well out of it.

So I'd recommend it to anyone who had the drive to do it, it's as much about the studying as it is about life experience.

I went to Uni in the good old days of the 80s when you could (just about ) live on the Grant. because my parents were poor, I got a full grant and left after 7 years at university not owing a penny.

I loved my time at Uni, got a reasonable degree in biochemistry, worked in research, the pharmaceutical industy and now teach. I hve never been without a job when I wanted one and consider myself to be very lucky. Couldn't have got any of the jobs without the degree.

I also made great friends and saw that there are a range of different ways that you can live your life etc.

And met and fell in love with dh as well!

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