SIX IN TEN SAY UNI WASN’T WORTH IT, ONLINE SURVEY SHOWS
Every now and then, I down several cups of strong black coffee and visit Prospects.ac.uk, the only graduate careers website that universities will recommend to you lot, despite the fact that – let’s be honest – it’s just about the most boring website you’ve ever seen. (Seriously, when was it written – the 1800s?)
However, something actually interested me today. At the bottom of their home page, there’s a little survey asking “Is university worth the cost?”
When I put in my answer, it revealed that a massive 65% of people who had also completed the survey had said No – while only 35% had said Yes.
To you, this probably isn’t shocking – mainly because you’re in that situation yourself and know loads of graduates struggling to get a good job. To you, this really isn’t news that such a large proportion of graduates doubt that university was a good investment.
The thing is, it really IS shocking. That more than 6 in 10 graduates feel their degree was a swizz should be headline news.
If this sample (and granted, I can’t tell how big it is) reflects the feelings of graduates on a national scale, this is something that needs urgent attention. For one thing, why isn’t the Government taking graduate unemployment more seriously? And why on earth are we still pumping schoolkids into university, if those coming out say it wasn’t worth it?
If Graduate Fog had done this survey and found this result, I’d be publicising it from the rooftops.
Will Prospects.ac.uk do the same? I doubt it. Unfortunately, there are too many people with very good reasons to hush up the fact that thousands of graduates would think twice about going to uni, if they had their time over again.
You see, it suits the Government and the universities (and all the universities’ various support organisations) much better to insist that there’s no problem at all and that their various schemes and initiatives are doing a fine job of helping you lot to find lovely well-paid graduate jobs and that everything is just dandy, thank you very much.
The fact that everything is far from dandy is really rather icky and inconvenient, so – shhhh – if you don’t mind, they’d rather keep that nice and quiet so people don’t start asking awkward questions about a system that you say is robbing hundreds of thousands of you every year.
Which is why I’m going to keep shouting about it, louder and louder…
Game on.
Keep screaming. Keep championing. Keep on busting open the inelegant truths. Fantastic work 🙂
Thanks – it’s great to hear back from the Foggers!
Careers advice is terrible. It think it is designed for white able bodied people from the highest socio – economic backgrounds. If a person is neuro – diverse (aspergers syndrome, autism, dyspraxia, dyslexia, AD(H)D) careers advice is terrible because it is not transparent, not mentioning the fact careers advisers do not understand neuro – diversity. If a person is part of a higher socio – economic background it is easier.
The thing that seems to be worse is that from speaking to people and seeing it myself, many average people the same age as me who did NVQ’S and never went to university are in better paid jobs that many recent graduates, including myself.
With regard to Basim’s point about neurodiversity I think that a large measure of the blame there has to be labelled at the door of “educational psychologists” who can assess such people and come up with something about their being “university material”.
As if that of itself is supposed to mean anything.
(And whats their excuse when their a product of the university system themselves? See my thread “neurodiverse graduates” in the prospects website.)
If there really was “no problem at all and that the various schemes and initiatives were doing a fine job of helping” such people “find lovely well-paid graduate jobs and that everything would be just dandy, thank you very much” one could begin to understand these peoples thought processes.
Otherwise shouldn’t a neurodiverse graduate not just want to do a Hanibal Lecter to these people’s faces for being such do gooding f”””””g a”””holes and beyond!
If they don’t really know what their talking about they should keep their mouths shut!
Claire, I’m not a statistician but I’m pretty sure there is evidence that overall, people with degrees still earn £100,000 more over their lifetime than those without. However, this is on average, mind. So not everybody will earn that much extra – while others will earn a lot more than 100k extra. I’m inclined to think that the crucial factor is not whether you have a degree or now, but how smart / entrepreneurial / opportunistic you are about navigating your career…
And Avarice! Am I going to have to ask you to turn on the mute button? I know this is a subject a lot of us feel passionately (ok, downright furious!) about – and you know i’m not a huge fan of uni careers services either! – but enough with the Lector threats ok?! ; ) Let’s keep this debate civilised – and this site clean – thanks xx
Well I thought that was actually being diplomatic in comparison to what I and others could really say but point taken Tanya.
My point was about educational psychologists telling such people (many after bad experiences in compulsory education) that the university route was some kind of mana from heaven for them if it is not. NOT THE UNIVERSITY CAREEERS SERVICES. And if such people are going to make such suggestions/recommendations they really should be clued up(and up to date) as to likely (if any) successful career possibilities and how the university careers services work (or dont)ESPECIALLY when they are products of the higher education system itself.
I thought I would have my own place, have now made my own real money and have been back from my umpteenth trip abroad since graduating based on the asssumption that such a “professional” really knew what they were talking about when I applied myself to the very best of my ability and got a first.
P.S How come there isn’t the facility to edit comments before their replied to as in the useless Graduate Prospects website?
Avarice – re the facility to edit comments, i’ll look into it!