It is not a great advert for university when the universities minister says he is not especially bothered whether his own children go or not. ‘The days of degree or bust are long gone,’ Jo Johnson told the Sunday Times recently. ‘There are alternative ways into the workforce these days. Absolutely I would say to my own kids to consider them.’
But hasn’t he got it the wrong way round? Is it not the case that a degree is more essential now than ever? That the chances of getting a good job without one have greatly diminished since a generation ago, when East End barrow boys went straight into the City and industry was full of leaders who had pulled themselves up by their bootstraps?
The recent revival of apprenticeships only partially counters a huge growth in higher education over the past 25 years. The proportion of graduates in the workforce has soared from 17 per cent in 1992 to 38 per cent now. It’s a brave 18-year-old who turns down a place at university knowing there will be lifelong competition for jobs from others who acquire a few magic letters after their names.
But how much is a university education worth? Not always a lot, according to Robert Halfon, the new chairman of the education select committee. He cites the example of business graduates from Liverpool Hope University. Maybe it should be renamed ‘More in hope than expectation university’ because, five years after leaving, a quarter of its graduates are still earning less than the £15,849 a year they would be paid for a 40-hour week stacking shelves at Tesco.
In fact, business and finance studies are not an especially good route to financial success. With graduates earning an average of £30,000 per annum (according to an Office for National Statistics study in 2013) these subjects lie midway down the table.
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