If you're a teacher who advises students on their A Level options ...

[inthisvehicle]

... which of these factors influence your advice, and in what order?:
1.The student's stated interests or career aspiration (and your confidence in their ability to reach their goals).
2.The student's predicted KS4 grades?
3.Attracting good students to your own subject area? (Please say what that is).
4.The school's need to fill up undersubscribed courses.
5.The school's aspiration to retain students that might otherwise go to college or elsewhere.
6.The Office for Students' guidance to HE institutions on its strategic priorities, and their categorisation of some courses as low value.
7.Trends in the graduate job market which show that some courses are more likely to lead to "graduate-level" jobs than others.

Fwiw, my personal experience as a parent (which might not be typical) is that 1-5 are all influential but that not all teachers have visibility of or interest in 6 or 7. As a consequence, they advise based on their own past experience of university, which can be out of date.

The only reason we were discussing that data was because you said 86% of employers don't ask for a specific degree. You were disagreeing with my point that if students have been told most employers don't care about what degree they have, and they should therefore just do what they want, then they were given out of date advice. I stand by my point and you stand by yours, but in the interests of clarity I will re-state mine as: if students have been told that most graduate roles don't care about what degree they have, and they should therefore just do what they want, then they were given out of date advice.

As I said early in the thread, the number of roles advertised for "any degree" has noticeably reduced compared to when most parents and teachers graduated, and the number of graduates has massively increased. Many students and their parents are only realising this when it is too late.

In other words, there is a lot more competition for the "any degree" jobs than there used to be. That's good news for employers, but bad news for graduates.

I've worked for many different companies, including civil service, media, consultancy and insurance, and none of them required specific degrees. I have loads of friends who have high powered jobs - law, advertising, finance for example - who all did arts degrees. I would say these were generally from RG universities though. In the civil service, there are a few jobs that require specific degrees - like economists or statisticians - but the vast majority don't.

In my media role - business journalism - I would tend to look more favorably on traditional arts subjects than media studies though when interviewing.

The graduate labour market is more competitive generally, not just those types of jobs.

Due to the cost of higher education in the UK we now have a narrative that encourages young people to choose a degree that will lead directly to a job. This is translated literally in many cases but it’s important for young people to know that there are a wide range of degree programmes that are highly respected by employers and that help you develop skills that are valued in the graduate labour market.
That can be very reassuring for young people who don’t have a clear career plan at 16/17 but who are academic and have the potential the thrive at university.
This is why high quality, expert careers guidance is important.

How old are you though?

"The graduate labour market is more competitive generally, not just those types of jobs."

Of course it is, but it should therefore be obvious that the jobs with the "any degree" requirement get far more applicants than the jobs with more restrictive requirements, and are therefore more competitive.

Sometimes it feels like you just want to have the last word …

@inthisvehicle It’s really about understanding the various levels of being an engineer. We seem to understand the qualifications a solicitor needs but think an engineer is just someone with a degree or a few practical skills leisure v a washing machine. It’s a shameful situation where professional qualifications are bypassed but people still call themselves engineers. I am very keen that students aim high and that anyone advising knows the difference between the degrees, the levels of professional qualifications and routes to them. That means accurate information.