Shift towards STEM and vocational degrees

[ErrolTheDragon]

I thought some here might be interested in this report from yesterday's Times, and today's leader column with a very positive response to it.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/university-students-ditch-arts-degrees-and-opt-for-medicine-w63vnzrxd?shareToken=6e46a444cbf4ad46435a1154c599e20a

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-times-view-on-changing-trends-in-higher-education-two-cultures-bzzlfbjzd?shareToken=66db880492335958414064160e810114

My take on it is that it's probably to some extent an overdue rebalancing following a rise in arts subjects in former polys versus their original more technical/vocational focus. And there's more easily accessible data on employment prospects and salaries, which coupled with tuition fees doubtless informs students decisions.

Essentially I believe it said biology graduates may well end up as lab technicians. Which is fine but probably wasn't the aspiration.

My understanding is that biology is one STEM area where there isn't a shortage of grads, and it's also the one where women are equally, or maybe over represented.

I wouldn't recommend anyone going into STEM for the money either, if you don't have the love of innovation (creativity to practical ends, sometimes)

Damn, hit post halfway through a sentence and now I've forgotten what else I meant to say. Never mind.
And definitely not if you really have no aptitude or dislike it.

@Xenia

As is law after a law degree degree - except it is an extra year to qualify but you are paid over £40k a year in your 2 years of training before that and then potentially can earn hundreds of thousands. We used to hire as lawyers once they qualified some people with a Phd in some areas like biotech as they had got so fed up with how low the pay could be in the UK in science compared with law.

I think we can all probably agree better o the point that if the top 20% or 15% only went to university and the rest started work at 18 as happened when I went to university then the issue would be solved- no student debt for most and getting all that work experience from age 18 (or age 16) rather than a degree which from some places is not very useful. That is probably more the problem than that arts v sciences are in a battle.

Unfortunately Law Conversion courses (and Law Degrees) are very oversold at the moment with a very small percentage of students obtaining training contracts . Law is still a "closed" profession for most students.

@chopc

It actually does matter what you study pre conversion to law and frequently where too. DD has seen lots of people study law at non RG universities (a few excepted) and struggle to get anywhere. Ditto studying Criminology, even at RG, and similar courses that are not considered academic enough by recruiters such as sports science. It is important to put yourself in the best possible position.

History from Durham or Bristol won’t stand in anyone’s way but History from the University of Nowhere is a greater hurdle. A first from a lesser university in quite a few degrees is unlikely to trump a 2:1 in History or similar subjects from a top university if you want a well paid career in law.

Is there any shortage of no/low skilled people though? Not sure there is. Maybe people would rather not have these jobs but with the collapse in retail and bar work, there may well be people desperately wanting any job.

As I said earlier there are too many low level universities. It seems many are there to improve the employment prospects in their locality but whether they actually do that is a moot point. A degree in itself doesn’t change the earning potential in areas of little economic investment. Just revert to the 1960s position but with polytechnics offering degrees, as now, but not HE colleges. The polys mostly do a good job but it’s very difficult for DC to know what to do with lower grade A levels or lower level BTec grades. What it shouldn’t be is university. I would like to see a far stronger apprenticeship model. But since the fanfare when it was launched, it’s half the size it was.

Yes. Law degrees need culling. But lawyers are from other disciplines too. The reason subject and uni matter is because employers can be very very choosy. The numbers doing conversions need culling too plus barristers courses!

I would like to see a far stronger apprenticeship model. But since the fanfare when it was launched, it’s half the size it was.

100%agree.
It's wryly amusing how often on MN when a poster has a DC who doesn't know what they want to do and not much apparent work ethic, someone pipes up about apprenticeships. As far as I can see it's considerably harder to get a good one than a place doing something-or-other at somewhere-or-other. DD was massively impressed when her a level physics lab partner got one with a serious engineering company - moreso than any of the uni offers.

In my household, DH has a PhD in a STEM subject. When in work, he earns more than I do, but has had a prolonged time setting up a small business as nobody would employ him anywhere within 90 minutes of home. As a lowly arts graduate, I have been lucky enough always to have a job. I changed career after 4 years but still went straight into a job. The DDs are both on STEM degree courses; who knows what will happen to them...?

It is for some sciences. The IFS did research which was published in 2017. As you can see it’s not all great for science grads. However these salaries will have outliers. Some will do extremely well with non science subjects and vice versa.

That's it. Thanks percy.

I think that quite strongly highlights my point. The top end of those are all STEM or career oriented studies.

Some general sciences with no clear career path like social sciences are pretty low, thats not really surprising.

I did PPE but wish I’d done Maths as it would have been much more useful for my career in corporate finance but i did PPE because I enjoyed it and didn’t have any particular career in mind.

DD did languages - easy degree as we’re a trilingual family. The U.K. is really poor on language skills. She now has her dream graduate job with the EU.
DS is doing his Masters in Engineering but has his first graduate job lined up in Singapore. The better opportunities appear to be outside the U.K. in STEM subjects. If the U.K. wants to compete in the international world in the STEM job market it has a lot of catching up to do. Much more funding and development needs to be given to expanding STEM in schools and colleges for both the future in degrees and the more practical apprenticeships.

I’m going to have a little rant now. @Parker231
How are ordinary DC with no languages in the family ever going to compete with trilingual DC who have had every advantage from day 1? My DD has a MFL degree and she had to work for it. Had done no languages prior to y7. It’s patently unfair and you have answered your own question. DC won’t do MFL because the top grade A levels are harder to get and so are the first class degrees because people who are already great at MFL get the top grades. Why do what’s easy? It’s dispiriting for others. As a result potential students are put off. So we don’t have students doing MFL and courses are closing.

Well done to your DC. Rant over.

Presenting - totally agree. Languages need to be taught in schools from Yr4. A lesson every day.
DD took an easy option for her degree and she realises the advantages she has had in getting the job she wanted although getting DT’s into the right school from primary was a nightmare.

On another point: I think I read somewhere that if the medical schools expanded to train all the doctors we need, virtually no well respected chemistry courses would have DC with the required A level qualifications. We also need golden handcuffs. We also have loads of engineering grads that never get near engineering after uni. Or go abroad after training after being subsidised here. No engineering course is £9250 a year in real costs. We have paid but have no advantage from it. Perhaps the uk should require grads to actually work here for 5 years in shortage areas?

Medicine and Dentistry at the top? Unsure about dentistry but in most fields of medicine, the salary doesn't compare with the private sector

My husband who did a humanities degree earns multiples of what I do (healthcare).

I don't think it's that straightforward. A DC who is going to go for a top tier law firm is going to be academically strong and will never entertain going to a low tier university for example

Apparently the pathway to law is changing in order to make it more accessible to everyone

However I agree with the PP - more apprenticeships/ vocational courses need to be out there. However as I believe university is so much more than getting a degree an a good job, and further education should be accessible to everyone - I don't know if the iffy degrees and low tier institutions should be scrapped

Yes, it is a complex picture. I try to get my 5 children to work backwards from where they want to be - what will you need to be or have XYZ - your hermit hut in the jungle or the nice house or 2 hours work a day or whatever else matters to you.

Law is not too bad as it has paid internships (vacation schemes) unlike some other careers such as fashion and all your post grad fees will be paid by a law firm if you are good enough although because partners earn up to £2m a year in some firms not surprising the best of the best of the best even tend not to get those jobs because of intense competition. My daughters are lawyers and 2 of my sons hope to be and I love it but there are loads of other good careers out there.

The law qualification changes for solicitors I suspect will not be too different SQE1 exams instead of GDL (for those who don't read law) then SQEII course and exams instead of the LPC course my twins start later this year. Then 2 years of trainig which under the new system you can do at one law firm as now which presumably the better people will do training in several departments and others will be allowed to work at 4 different places under a solicitor going good quality work but might find it harder then to be hired.

Technically it might be possible to learn for the SQE exams without any courses and just pay the £4k course fees although I doubt that would be good easy to do and might put firms off hiring people but we shall see. What we really need to be careful about is ensuring only those competent to advise clients or in the case of doctors operate safely on people - the fact some careers are hard to pass exams for or get into can be really good an really important and a consumer safety issue.

Those were salaries from the IFS after 5 years of graduating. It also takes into account slower starts by some but we know they accelerate later. It’s also a reflection that there are few medical and dentistry grads and vet grads but 18500 law grads. Many of the latter won’t get near a high earning law job. They are competing with other grads from other subjects. So it’s harder. Medical grads effectively walk into a well paid job and keep it. You cannot say medicine as a career doesn’t pay and you cannot compare it with people earning £100,000 plus after 10 years because they are not the norm in this country. Although their tax is welcome.

Another chart showed the LSE had most high earning grads. A small university with a barrow range of subjects. No archaeology or art there.

My DH would say he does not want engineers with a narrow computer focus either. Safety in design is always important.

As well as knowledge gained from a degree the skills developed are crucial;
“Recently, the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) surveyed more than 1,000 managers and around 800 students to form a report called 21st Century Leaders. The report outlined the key qualities that employers are looking for in a graduate.
The top five professional abilities employers want are:
Taking responsibility (identified by 60%)
People management skills (55%)
Honest and ethical (55%)
Problem solving and critical analysis (52%)
Collaboration and team-working (48%)
www.managers.org.uk/knowledge-and-insights/blog/soft-skills-employers-are-looking-for-in-a-graduate/
Increasingly today’s graduates will have multiple careers in their working lives and the skills they can demonstrate are what will make them successful.

On another point: I think I read somewhere that if the medical schools expanded to train all the doctors we need, virtually no well respected chemistry courses would have DC with the required A level qualifications.

That sounds like someone did a massively oversimplistic look at numbers and grades. Most people who do chemistry have absolutely no desire to be medics. I love chemistry (moreso in silico than in vitro) but I'd have hated medicine. Temperamentally quite unsuited too.

I most definitely read this report too as my DD1 was thinking about Biochemistry and looked into graduate earnings, which as this report highlighted weren’t all that great, especially for women.

That chart isn't quite as clear cut as it looks. They use actual salary, not pro-rata salary, so subjects with larger proportions of female graduates will look as if they earn less as women's salaries are lower (more work part time and gender pay gap). Hence why Biology is the lowest paid science.

Are that many women working part time within 5 years of graduation, Titchy? I'd have thought that effect would bite a bit later.
The sciences in general might be a bit down at that point because quite a lot of the best will have done PhDs and only just be getting on the ladder.

If you look at the best paid female graduates, the list of universities has a STEM focus - the IFS study found that that the top five for women were: LSE, Oxford, Imperial, Harper Adams, Cambridge.

LSE, Imperial and Harper Adam’s all have a STEM focus.

@ErrolTheDragon

Are that many women working part time within 5 years of graduation, Titchy? I'd have thought that effect would bite a bit later. The sciences in general might be a bit down at that point because quite a lot of the best will have done PhDs and only just be getting on the ladder.

You assume all graduates went to university aged 18