Is there any point going to university if you can't get a job afterwards?

Yes, says John O'Leary from the Good University Guide. There might not be jobs at the moment, but there should be in three years, so you may as well go. See below for a list of the huge changes in graduate vacancies (it's not happy reading!) and the

John says:

"Employment prospects for graduates are the worst for two decades, according to a new report. They are still better than for other job-seekers, but is that good enough for those contemplating a degree to justify thousands of pounds of debt in three or four years time? Parental support may be more of a struggle and, while student loans will still represent good value, the perennial undergraduate overdraft and the part-time work needed to keep it in check may both be harder to come by.

The High Fliers survey focuses on 30 leading universities and the top 100 recruiters of graduates, and even they have seen vacancies slump by 17 per cent since last year (which also saw a drop). We can only imagine how much worse the position is at other universities and other firms.

No one knows how deep or long-lasting the recession will be, but logic suggests that school-leavers should not be put off applying for higher education. Even the most pessimistic forecasts envisage a recovery by 2012, when most of this year’s entrants to English, Welsh and Northern Irish universities will graduate. And what is the alternative for teenagers looking for work this summer?

For the growing number of mature students, the picture is more complicated. Giving up a steady job to take a full-time degree course would be a considerable risk in the current circumstances, but it might be a sound investment for those who have just lost one and see no immediate prospect of finding another.

John Denham, the Universities Secretary, is working on plans for internships for the thousands of graduates who will emerge from university this summer without a job to go to. Although no one (including his own department) knows how the scheme will work, internships are better than nothing and may turn into permanent employment for many of the graduates involved. Two of my own children got their first jobs that way.

But the scheme must be genuinely national if it is to be effective and not just focus on the big firms that were mentioned in the initial announcement. Internships in the City of London are no help if you live on a council estate in Middlesbrough. It will take a lot more effort to sign up regional employers without a tradition of internships, but that will be what is needed if those who responded the Government’s drive to widen participation in higher education are not to be let down."

Changes in graduate vacancies 2007-09

                                           %                                                
Public sector                         51.4
Armed forces                        17.4
Banking and finance              8.9
Oil and energy                       2.0
Engineering                          -1.8
Consumer goods                   -1.9
Law                                     -2.8
Retailing                              -3.3
Chemicals and pharmaceuticals   -5.5
Consulting                           -13.3
Accounting and professional services  -15.8
IT and telecommunications   -20.3
Media                                  -33.4
Investment banking             -38.3

Source: The Graduate Market in 2009, published by High Fliers

Read more on the High Fliers report with Which universities do the top companies target?

Read School Gate on:

Why more needs to be done for working class kids to go to university

The nightmare of graduation in 2009

The credit crunch hits: will more students live at home?

What the school league tables don't tell you

Should prospective students take any notice of research ratings?

The top universities in the world and why Britain should be proud

The easier way to get into Cambridge

Comments

[Harvey Crosby]

It's typical of money-obsessed non-graduates to think of university in purely vocational terms. It is of course at least as much about having an opportunity to think and grow. Priceless, as they say.

[Elle Wood]

In todays economy it may be difficult to get the perfect job at your originally chosen field, however, returning to the classroom, the online classroom offers you affordable opportunity to choose a secondary career, or turn a hobby into a business.

[Michael]

The world is full of ' graduates ' who are bewildered that they can't get jobs.

It's a hard fact.... employers need ' skills ' not Mickey Mouse degrees.

It's just a dismal fact that university is a waste of time - effort - and cash.

Good Luck.

[An Ivy Leaguer]

Hey TJH,

'A-Level's have been simplified to such an extent that three A's and a place on a highly competitive course at a 'good' University can still lead a graduate who is yet to grasp the rule of substiting 'y' for 'ies' when writing the word 'university's' (sic).'

It's 'substituting' not 'substiting'.

Get it?

[onetwothree]

Yes, 'get a life'andy talks of an Australian PM. If he's an Aussie, then clearly some colonials still hold their inferiority complex when looking at their imperial master country. Meaningless cliches seem to be international however, as does equating material wealth and social position with fulfillment and happiness. Likewise lacking the modesty not to boast.

[sabre]

Andrew, don't come to the UK again. As you can see from some of the other comments, we have our own arrogant braggarts.

[Anne]

There are many universities which can provide you with good education. I must say there is such tendention to choose a profession which is on top, but very often a few people think over whether it is on top in a few years. I see that is the main reason why people can't find the job after their graduation. Of course, I agree with the thought that you should choose the profession which will bring you happiness and admiration. But on the other hand, my strong conviction is that one should study the market of jobs and its tendentions before entering a university or college.

[Lash LaRue]

From the other side of the world and years of experience I can tell you any degree will become stale and out-of-date if you don't work in the field. I know, I have a stale Masters and its a huge hindrance, as it sets expectations for pay, type of work, etc. AFter three to four years, an unused degree is worth little.

Here is an excellent article from a Vancouver carer coach:
Are you fresh?
September 27th, 2005 by Ian Christie

Here is a secret from the search, recruitment, and hiring market.
When it comes to job search, candidates may not have an expiry date,
but there is such a thing as candidate “freshness.”
By fresh I mean the degree to which the person reviewing your resume,
talking to you on the phone, or interviewing you considers you a hot
commodity. Of course, your experience and skills are the primary
factors. But every person on the hiring end of the equation
implicitly factors in a freshness factor. How long have you been on
the market? Who else have you talked to?
You are most fresh, most desirable when you are employed somewhere
else and just starting to look. This is when your value is greatest
in the marketplace.
The next degree of freshness is when you are still employed somewhere
else but have a target exit date.
At the next level, you have just left your previous place of
employment and have just entered the job market.
And so on toward lesser degrees of freshness.
Where does this come from?
I made up this word, so I doubt you will ever hear a recruiter use
the term. I think the key reasons are:
An assumption that the longer you are unemployed, the less desirable
you are. I don’t believe this to be necessarily true, but I am
telling you that this attitude exists.
An assumption that the fresher you are, the fewer times you have been
looked at. For 3rd party recruiting and search agencies this is very
important. They make money by filling the needs of the hiring
companies. If they are the first agency to talk to you, or close to
it, they will feel that they have a higher degree of probability of
placing you. Conversely, the longer you are the market, presumably,
the more agency contacts you have made and the less chance they
have.
Similarily, hiring companies love to “pull” someone out of another
company and advertise the fact that so-and-so came from Name Brand
company to join our team.
What can you do about it?
Use the assets you have. If you are still employed when you start
job searching, be sure to communicate that. If you have just gone on
the market, be sure to communicate that.
Manage your timing: Get your resume out and start contacting key
channels while you are still employed, if possible. If you have just
come onto the market, make those contacts quickly.
Messaging: Sometimes, the language we use can go a long way toward
creating an impression. Savvy candidates communicate and convey that
they are being selective in who they talk to and opportunities that
they apply to. This is smart job search strategy anyway, but is very
important in managing your impression of freshness.
Stay busy: Savvy candidates stay busy when their job search is going
to prolong. Having a consulting assignment allows you to wear the
hat of someone employed and again, increases your freshness in the
eyes of the person hiring or recruiting.
I know the concept sounds unfair. But, this is one of those
implicit, unspoken mental programs running in the heard of people who
review resumes. Best to be aware of it.

[Ben Hopkins]

Education is just another step to slavery in this country. It doesn't bring extra value to our career prospects, it just increases the total amount of debt burden that each of us bears.

[Claudia Conway]

I have to say, jobs were not the slightest bit on my mind when I went to university - it just never occured to me not to go to university, as I guess I (and all my peers at school) felt it was something people like us just did, regardless.

Mind you, we escaped fees by just a few years, although I doubt that has changed the feelings of middle class kids very much.

As it was, it took a year without proper employment and a post-graduate qualification before I started on a job that paid less than a graduate is supposed to start on averagely (well, I did choose to go into publishing!)

With the government's ludicrous idea that 50% of people should have a degree I do feel we're heading for a situation where people entering the job market are going to need a degree, a postgrad and long periods working for nothing before they get a look-in.

Personally, I think fewer people should go to uni and more employers should be open to giving people without degrees a chance to break into a good career if they show promise. I fear some kids are absorbing a message that if they don't get to university, they can forget about ever having a good job, and I fear they just give up on themselves.

[T Fitz]

I have an 18 yr old son who is studying the three sciences and maths at college - on track for A's. My husband and I never even went to college so don't know much about Uni.These entries are scaring me though - he won't be able to get a grant and so will rely on loans - even with us subsidising him to the tune of £2-300 a month he will still come out with between £25k to £30k of debt. He is thinking of taking a physics or chemistry degree or a chemical or nuclear engineering degree - are there still well paid graduate jobs for those degrees - are they recession proof? Maybe he needs to think again about an engineering apprenticeship instead - but I was happy about him aiming higher than me and his dad and don't want to limit him. It's just that £30k is an awful lot of debt to start out with in or out of a recession!!!

[TJH]

Robert J raises a very good point. To see graduates write a comment on here that frankly points towards three years banging their head up against a brick wall as opposed to studying towards a degree is perhaps indicative of why so many fail to attain good, well-paid jobs after University.

Without wanting to sound too guilty of intellectual snobbery, I have been amazed as I come to the end of my degree at a top ten British university as to the general calibre of undergraduates. It is a myth to even suggest that attending University is an indicator of intelligence anymore. A-Level's have been simplified to such an extent that three A's and a place on a highly competitive course at a 'good' University can still lead a graduate who is yet to grasp the rule of substiting 'y' for 'ies' when writing the word 'university's' (sic).

Only yesterday I was astounded to have a conversation with a friend of mine studying a finance degree who was completely oblivious as to the principles of exchange rates. This is not at some former polytechnic wasteland either. Too many people are going to University these days. Simple. New Labour have sold a vision of aspiration that should never have been bought in to.

[Jon]

The problem with degrees is there are too many universities round the world now and that is not just in the UK. China and ASEAN is facing the same problems where universities are being minted thus providing an over supply of graduates with an under supply of jobs to absorb the excess. Secondly, it is not just a British problem it is a worldwide phenomenon that degrees are the panacea to not doing blue collared jobs. That is a big mistake.

[madmarce]

Knowing what I know now, I would not have wasted my time doing a degree. What counts in many areas (eg the arts, finance) is not what you know but who you know. Someone from the "right" school/background and with friends in high places (and who can afford to work for a pittance because they are supported by Daddy)will always get their feet under a desk, but doors remain shut in the faces of many graduates. In my day, there were no student loans to be saddled with either. It's a con and thousands of working and middle-class 20-somethings are in for a big, big disappointment.

[langtonhighway]

Poster "P", graduating from Newcastle University with a degree in Politics has used two apostrophes incorrectly in her post. Graduate or not, her application would end up in the waste bin if it landed on my desk! Get the basics right before worrying about a degree.

[Hol]

"Get off your arse, work hard, prove you can make a difference and you won't have to write miserable comments like the ones on here."

You have assumed the people writing miserable comments haven't got off their arses and worked hard. Maybe in some cases that's true, but you have zero basis to assume either way. As somebody who did it and did it while battling (then) undiagnosed depression, I find that utterly insulting. I spent every night at home crying my eyes out and struggled to face the world every morning, but my employers never got a whiff of it and all they ever said in my employee reviews was "great, keep it up." I've come out the other side of all this to finally be in a decent job (and just happier in myself) and I resent being told that the reason that I and others struggled getting decent jobs is because we haven't pulled our finger out for it. Please don't tar all with the same brush.

Maybe we ought to live in a meritocracy where it was as simple as "if you're good you'll get a job," but we don't. Sometimes you can work your backside off and still not get everything you deserve out of it - this is life. I don't deny that some people are just lazily expecting to be handed more than they've earned, but to dismiss all as doing that is to overlook the many and obvious flaws of current attitudes and policies on education.

[Cahill]

If you're good, you will have a job. If you're not, you won't.

Whatever the field, education is something that shortens in length on the CV as you become more experienced.

An MSc from the red brick universities is not going to help anybody's cause if it doesn't add value.

Get off your arse, work hard, prove you can make a difference and you won't have to write miserable comments like the ones on here.

Kris, you need to change your perception of what 'going to uni' means. You missed out on a lot if what you mentioned is all you did.

[P]

Hi,
I am graduating this June from Newcastle University, one of the "Russell group" university’s with a degree in Politics and Economics, who has had to support university through part time jobs and luckily managed to get 2 months summer work experience at Unilever

I believe that this is not a low ranking university or a "Mickey mouse" course and I do have experience in a large company but still I have found myself rejected from over 30-40 graduate schemes and jobs. This is obviously due to the recession and economic downturn but what more to companies want?

Also many top companies seem to believe that giving you a psychometric test is the only way to filter down the number of graduates. One has to ask, how does this test show your true abilities and that you are the best to carry out a role? Many of these tests seem to be like the 11+ exam you had to sit at school, which has rotating shapes and you have to put the next one in the sequence. Yes, there are services at universities and practice tests online to help students. Although I find myself asking the question, why did I spend thousands of pounds at university to become better educated when it seems getting a job only comes down to passing one online test? Everyone has different abilities and different skills to being to a company or a role, and I don’t believe answering 20 questions in 20 minutes shows who is the best candidate. For example those students who has studied mainly literature based courses such as English, may not have done math’s since their GCSES and would add a lot of value to company, but they are rejected on the grounds of not passing a numerical reasoning test.

I understand that companies are flooded with graduates and it is time consuming to go through each individual candidate, but I believe the current system for graduate schemes is extremely flawed.

[Hol]

If somebody's expecting their degree to hand them a cushy career on a plate then obviously it's their own complacent fault when they fail to get jobs. That's pretty self evident. However, not everybody complaining is of that ilk and there are genuine complaints to be made about the current graduate market. The whole point of having one is that even if they don't hand you the keys to the kingdom, they are of at least some benefit. I'm sure employers would also pipe up; it has to be frustrating when you're inundated with graduate candidates who look good on paper but turn out to be ill-prepared by their studies.

From my own experience... I expected a fight for jobs when I graduated. Thus, as I said earlier, I went out into the workplace fully prepared to start from the low paid dregs and work up. I had no illusions about starting salary and merely accepted it as paying my dues; that crucial experience to put on your CV has worth beyond money when you're first starting. Even during the initial struggle (counting the time I spent before graduation, it took me eight months to secure my first post-grad work) I kept faith. I don't expect things to be handed to me without effort on my part. It was only once I'd clocked that up and nothing changed that I became disillusioned. My degree certainly wasn't a Mickey Mouse or soft course, it was one of the traditional and still respected academic subjects; sadly that just added to the 'overqualified' fuel.

Yet, for all this, I'm still lucky because I at least managed to get something. Even the most diligent graduates who start seeking experience as undergraduates often find that if they don't already have it then it's unreasonably difficult to secure any opportunities to gain it. Yet everyone has to start somewhere... breaking through that catch 22 is awkward enough, but when there's an oversaturated graduate market it's even more of a fight. Even allowing for the fact that nobody should expect an easy ride I don't feel it self pitying to point out that, with all these things considered, the 'get everyone into university' policy does more harm than good.

All this said, I think Frank makes a good point about the 'underqualified' label being equally unfair. Experience teaches you things a classroom or lecture hall can't, and that knowledge is just as worthy in the workplace. It seems that we're progressing to a point where having a degree and lacking one are equally vexatious!!

[Airborne]

A number of complaints seem to centre on the feeling ‘I went to uni for 3 years and want a job’, while employers want work experience or a combination of both.

Surely the obvious solution would be for many individuals to study for an academic qualification while working, where practicable.

I am due to complete my own degree in June following almost four years of study while serving in the Army. I have a number of friends in engineering who went down this path, starting with an apprenticeship and continuing onto a degree, and a wife in law who started as a legal secretary at 16 and is now a successful private client solicitor.

We all agree that the lessons learnt about self management and time appreciation is almost as valuable as the specific qualifications, studying while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan certainly focuses the mind to these issues.

This country needs to lose its delusional idea of what hard work constitutes. Stop expecting three years of state sponsored drinking followed by a quality job and get out into the world, if you truly want and need the qualification you will achieve it.

[Bob Ericson]

Since someone got hold of the idea that degrees were a commercial commodity and not a level of learning beyond the mundane and practical, then the whole concept of the degree level has been devalued. The Government does not want to encourage creative enquiry and objective critical analysis in the working population, who should be properly employed only in keeping their financial heads above water. The old-style degrees (philosophy, politics etc) that posed serious questions about the society we are governed in, has been engineered to be only the preserve of those who do not need to work steadily for an income. This is the two-tier system now being introduced by the business-friendly Labour government. Shame on them.

[Alex - Frankfurt]

Oops, that was meant to be @ Kris.

Sorry

[Andrew]

As someone who graduated when jobs were non-existent, I find it hilarious to read the pathetic bleatings from those who blame the government and the Universities for not being able to get a job of their choice. As an Australian Prime Minister once said "Life wasn't meant to be easy!"
I travel to the UK often and the tone of the letters seems to be a reflection of what I see when I visit; the country expects to be given a free ride and everyone wants to blame someone else for their lot in life.
Grow up, get a life and make what you want out of your life. Degree or no degree; your choice. Most of my wealthier friends are those without degrees. I have two and am happy with my lot although I do not have the wealth of my friends.

As for Ken (02:10am), do us all a favour and crawl back under the rock you came from!

[Frank]

At the other end of the scale, there are those of us with plenty of work experience who find ourselves "under-qualified" just because we haven't got a degree. This puts us at a serious disadvantage in the employment market competing against apparently better qualified candidates, except we have no REALISTIC proposition of ever obtaining a degree due to age, family commitments and insufficient financial resources to take three years off - let alone trying to get back into the ageist workplace as an older person.

[Alex - Frankfurt]

@ John heppell

As a student myself I would also say that some of the factors you mention are relevant, however one problem I see in other students is complacency. Many seem to have the assumption that jobs wait for them upon graduation.

It takes a brief moment for example, to go to HSBC's Careers site and notice that most of the graduate programmes have simply stopped recruiting. This seems to be the situation across the board.

[Matt]

As a university graduate there are a couple of things to note:

1) University should be seen as a stepping stone and not the easy route to getting the job

2) Going to university is the students choice. You didn't have to go.

Conclusion; Don't expect a moon on a stick; go out and develop more external skills to make you more attractive to employers. I have plenty of 'bright' graduate friends who have not got off their backsides and are still working in menial jobs.

[Carlos]

Ken – wow, a lot of anger there... Actually, I work for money. I enjoy my job, but being paid is important to me (and the family I support… maybe that just proves your point?)...

The irony is that when I finished uni ('95), most of my peers were contemplating doing PhDs as there were no/few jobs. Looks like little has really changed... Certainly I didn’t get a graduate job when finished. Took a couple of years and another degree in my case.

My two cents:

1) Identify an area that is “relatively” recession proof and international

2) Study a tough, real, relevant and pure subject (e.g. maths, chemistry, biochemistry, English, history etc.) that will show you are clever/bright not worried about the challenge, and not one of these modern fake “vocational” subjects like media studies or business studies etc.

3) Have fun, get a 2.1 (shows better work-life balance)

4) Then look for a more “vocational” course that will get you a diploma, MSc or MBA

5) Once you have that leave the UK and don’t look back…

[Tom Welsh]

With the possible exception of "chemicals and pharmaceuticals", your list of 14 categories includes none relevant to science! In contrast, you devote separate categories to "banking and finance", "investment banking", and "accounting and professional services".

It's pretty clear that the UK still has no time for science, and no interest in providing jobs for science graduates.

[john heppell]

Those who can remember 1979

"crisis what crisis?"

Labour always screw the economy its what they mean by "Change".

Graduate - if you are so smart start a business - become the boss - what other reason can there be to go to a university.

Why settle for being a wage slave?

[Kris]

Fact of the matter is that "uni" is about leaving home, living alone, not studying at all, getting drunk and having sex, for the majority of school leavers. Students claim that their subjects are boring. Lecturers complain that students are lazy. They are not lazy, just drunk or hungover.

The number of mickey-mouse degrees and subjects available is staggering. Having spoken to many CEOs and asking them how they view university I have learned how little value employers are placing upon degrees.

Having said all of the above, I have noticed that employers tend to expect that all people are born with "relevant work experience" which is somewhat unfair.

[Rob]

Its about time all the pointless degrees were canned and got back to basics - its no wonder there is a surplus of so called graduates who have little or nothing to offer and who merey spent a few more years wasting time. A good apprentice scheme is what the country needs to train people who can actually make and do things!

[Political Realist]

What graduates often fail to realise is that very few undergraduate courses provide one with necessary vocational training to step into many jobs. It is increasingly necessary to go on to gain some more advanced qualifications (particularly in the professional and executive spheres) in order to appeal to employers. Labour has propogated this myth that somehow a graduate degree will ensure jobs for all.

[wiebo van der meulen]

all i can say if you have drive and initiative come to south africa. there are endless opportunities here

[Chris Stevens]

One of the main problems is that there is a trend away from learning for the sake of training the mind towards more vocational degrees like business studies, which are a complete waste of time. As an employer you realise that people with experience are far more useful than people with a pointless degree from a low ranking university.

When it comes to getting a job, your personal brand is most important. For graduates that includes building credibility in an academic field as well as gaining experience and showing interest in the job for which you are applying. No longer can you just turn up, do a finance degree and then expect a solid job in banking.

[catz]

It`s very sad that so many young people are disappointed -like the posters here.
Well, their parents and grandpatents believed the promises of NuLabour: everybody `suddenly` rich, `middle-class`, `going to uni`, loadsa holidays, sitting on fat houseprices --- and every other one of their voters` stupid, greedy, wasteful illusions. No-one should have fallen for all that nonsense from Tony Blair... they kept voting for him, so it`s their own fault. Stop whingeing and get real, voters! It was ZaNuLabour who lied to you.

[andrew]

Luke and other complainers: wake up for goodness sake! You have been struggling for 17 years to get a graduate job?? Did you think maybe that the problem is you, not the qualification or the political establishment?!

[Penny Stokes]

I went 2 university, it was great, a total laff, got a degree now am doin an MA - much easier than I expected.

hope i can get a job though asap when done

sort out the ecomony guys!!!!!

dont wanna be broke!!!!!!!

[Ken]

Anyone who works only for money is a pathetic waste of human life.

If your work isn't making the world a better place and providing a valuable, worthy thing, you should be killed.

That said, University is nothing but an expensive barrier to entry to stuff you could do after researching on your own on the internet for a couple of years.

Who wants to contribute to the 'economy' anyway? No one cares whether you live or die, only your family does.

[Robert J]

I must confess to being taken aback by the grammar from posters that have been through university. I am not trying to provoke anyone, goodness knows my own needs dusting over, but as a representative of the educational elite I really would expect flawless english to flow naturally.

[heqiu]

Looking on the bright side, going to university now is worth a try. Students have time to pick up knowledge in the recession. When they graduate, there will be recovery and jobs are available.

But for those who unfortunately graduate in the recession, they have no choice but to manage to overcome the difficult time. Let's hope this arduous phase may soon pass by.

[Chris]

There is certainly a benefit for going to University both for the individual and the economy.

While one reader insightfully suggests that the market is being oversaturated with graduates you have to remember it has a merit affect and the number of jobs will grow as the workforce becomes more skilled.

[Glen Thomas]

A large fraction of all those going to university do not improve their lifetime earning potential, since they have lost three or four years of career progression and have to spend a part of their income to servicing a large debt.

Colleges routinely steer students to university even when it is not in the students' best interests: the 'going to uni' experience is seen as a universal right, rather than a higher level of education for those who could benefit. The NUS is as guilty of pushing this as anyone. (See http://gcthomas.blogspot.com/2008/09/nus-wants-everyone-to-go-to-oxford.html)

[Hol]

I'm in a better job now with slightly better pay, thank God, and though the money situation still frustrates me a bit it's much easier to deal with when I like my job. In recession I'm lucky to have a job at all, let alone one I enjoy.

I think what annoys me in terms of Government policy is this stupid idea they had that pushing more people into degree courses was a good idea and would help more youngsters get good jobs. Any idiot could see that the opposite would happen - they created a bunch of new courses so that they could say they'd improved education and got more people to uni without heeding the fact that employers think them worthless. Thanks to that folly, those graduates who were led to believe this would help them get jobs have found it does nothing of the sort, and it's devalued other people's degrees. The Givernment while selling them the joys of university education forgot to tell them that employers do not look at all universities or all degree courses with admiration. Graduates from some they will actively avoid.

It's also stupid to push more people to become graduates unless you create more graduate jobs - any idiot could see that otherwise it just creates an overstaurated market where employers can cut graduate salaries because of demand for places and it winds up with severely overqualified graduates in jobs which totally waste their talents because demand for graduate schemes etc. would become well in excess of supply. It's obvious, and yet they did it anyway.

As someone who's always been academic and would always have headed to uni with or without the Government claiming everybody should, it annoys me to no end that my degree's been devalued. I also feel extremely sorry for those people who went to university, worked hard, and have discovered that what they were fed was a total lie and that far from enahncing their CV people look at their courses and dismiss them as Mickey Mouse degrees. That has to be really galling.

Instead of pushing people into uni who may not necessarily belong there, maybe they should focus more on making vocational courses and qualifications more accessible.

[Luke Willen]

I know exactly what you mean Hol. I graduated in 1991 and I am still struggling to get that elusive "graduate job"

Sure, tempiong can give you some experience and some money coming in at least sometimes.As you say though it does not give you much intellectual stimulation.

The fact is that we have been betrayed by the political establishment and that includes both Labour and the Tories. I am not likely to be voting for either again as they are as bad as each other and most certainly do not have the slightest idea of how to resolve this country's problems/

It is time that unemployed British graduates of whatever age began getting angry and demanding the social, political and economic changes needed to resolve this crisis.

[Hol]

I often wonder what the point of me going was (aside from just enjoying learning).

I struggled to get any kind of work when I came out. I was game for anything, unafraid to start at the low paid bottom and work up, I just wanted to get out there and get experience under my belt (I'd stuggled to find summer work placements at uni for this purpose, oversubscribed). I never expected my degree to just hand me a cosy and decently paid job, but I thought it'd at least help.

I wound up being paid a pittance in some of the most mind numbing temp jobs imaginable because it was all I could get. Other employers took one look at my degree and assumed that I'd be gone to more prestigious pastures in six months because I was overqualified. The temping people loved me - I was so overqualified for what I was doing they got some serious value for money out of already cheap labour. It made me deeply unhappy to be so stagnated without any hope of intellectual stimulation or career progression, caused depression which I still struggle with now, and it prevented me from earning enough money to strike out on my own as I wanted. Money isn't my primary motive - I like to work and want opportunities to progress- but you do need it! I didn't want to be at home and a burden to my parents, but I had zero financial choice. I'm still working at below even the lower expected starting graduate salaries.

I loved university and value what I learned there, but given that the degree has failed to do me much good in the working world I've often wondered whether I'd have been better off just going into an entry level position after school and having three more years' salary/experience under my belt. I don't like thinking that because I loved the time there, but I can't help wondering.

[Bianca Summons]

There are certainly still prospects abroad for people with degrees from good UK universities - I have had much better luck here in France here in the UK after graduation and plan to stay indefinitely.

I'm perplexed, however, as to how a student loan can represent good value for money when the interest alone is mounting at £30-£50 per month.