Of course not everyone should go to university…
It is disappointing for the 150,000 would-be students who have failed to gain a place at university, but degrees wouldn’t be worth much if if they were available to everyone who wanted one.
Governments’ mistake of recent years has been not only to increase the supply of college courses to meet demand but also to raise demand for degrees to try to meet that supply. Rejecting a swathe of students this year is not a symptom of the current austerity measures but an essential element of rationing to ensure that these qualifications retain a value.
No one would suggest that because not every applicant to Oxbridge can be accepted on courses, more colleges should be built there; so why suggest that extra spaces are created at other universities to accommodate all who want to attend? A university place has to be earned, not demanded.
It was well-meant folly to suggest that 50 per cent of school-leavers should progress to university. It not only meant lowering entry standards to ensure enough people pass the threshold, it falsely assumed that so many people will benefit from a university education – an intellectual arrogance and ignorance perpetrated by those who have degrees and think everyone else should have them too.
But if the academics need re-educating in the value of taking a degree, so do employers, students, parents, schoolteachers and others who offer advice. We must stop using a degree as proxy for career success.
Students should consider whether missing out of three years’ further education is a three-year delay in their career, three years’ less earnings, a large student loan and possible lifetime graduate tax – and, for many, an intellectual strain.
This is not an excuse or an argument for not trying to succeed at school, but while for many the benefits of a degree will offset the input, for many more it does not – not least because bad degrees in easy subjects impress few employers, leaving the graduates more jobless than if they had sought employment straight from school.
Employers rightly look beyond the degree certificate to chose the best graduates but they should also consider whether offering their own relevant training to people who shun – or are shunned – by universities could give them a better employee and give the employee a better future.
