People enter in to higher education for all sorts of reasons, many of which want to gain a high paying job at the end of the three years. This is the common conception of the out come of a university degree, indeed if this was not the case would so many people really spend all those thousands of pounds on it?
Today I read in the Guardian that a third of students who have started university since 1998 have not yet started repaying their loans.
This means that 10 years after finishing their degrees, many graduates are still earning LESS than 15k!
How is this possible?
Are modern graduates settling for menial, minimum wage jobs because they simply cannot be bother to fulfill their potential? Granted a small minority probably are-but the real problem is that today no company will give the graduate a chance in the real world.
Nowadays degrees are 'two a penny', and with so many being deemed 'mickey mouse' courses it's no surprise that they do not seem to be worth the paper that they are written on.
Employers would rather have someone who started at the bottom and knows the business rather than a novice with no other skills than being able to down a pint in two seconds! Students are also socially more immature than their peers who have been in full time work for three years.
Companies just don't have time for graduates. It does not make financial sense to hire them-they still have to be trained but unlike people without a degree they also expect a decent wage to do the training!
I'm not damning a good education, far from it. I 100% believe that being well educated is one of the most important attributes a person can have, yet from a financial perspective perhaps people who do not necessarily need to go to university should consider an apprenticeship or internship, before getting saddled with a loan they have no means of repaying and a long hard slog to get the wage they deserve.
And on another note, perhaps in our current economic climate the Government should think twice about getting more people into university and encouraging debts, especially those that can never, with all the will in the world, get paid off.
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"Companies just don't have time for graduates. It does not make financial sense to hire them-they still have to be trained but unlike people without a degree they also expect a decent wage to do the training!"
There is a reverse to this. Many companies deliberately hire graduates because amongst other things, too many have no real-world experience, especially in the corporate world. They can mold them into what they want them to be, so many companies find that the training is worth it if it produces someone that will have a sense of loyalty.
Company loyalty however is not something in large supply as it was in my parents day. I do disagree with the idea that people with no degree don't expect a decent wage. That is not always the case, though I can understand that viewpoint.
I think part of the reason I am in the process of starting my own business as a freelance writer is for some of the reasons you noted. I have been in the working world for over 30 years, and I got tired of relying on a company to determine what I will be making in terms of salary. If all goes well, within 1 to 2 years I will be able to quit this hellish job I am in now and be on my own.
Thanks for stopping by my blog and electing to follow it.
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