by Paul Wiltshire, founder of Universitywatch.org and the author of the report ‘The Graduate Debt Trap & Lower Academic Entry standards'
There are 31,613 courses from 335 providers available on UCAS. I am absolutely positive that some of these are utter dead-ends. But in the large majority of cases, I’m just as certain that courses are set up and run by university staff intent on nothing else except providing a good education and doing the best for their students. And that an overwhelming number of the students are studying hard and are ambitious for their futures.
Therein lies the much bigger problem. It’s not just about so-called Mickey Mouse degrees as the majority of courses that end up being a waste of time and money are perfectly good and are well-run. Because no matter what course is chosen, no matter how good the teaching is and no matter how hard the student tries, if you are not particularly academic, then spending three years pursuing a degree isn’t likely to improve your pay prospects a great deal, if at all. You are better off going to work instead and avoiding the debt.
An acid test of the financial success of gaining a degree is whether the graduate ends up in a debt trap. This is the fate of 44 per cent, or 186,000 each year, of students in England, who are predicted by government statistics to never pay off their Plan 5 student loans, as they will not earn enough to escape the 9 per cent repayments on earnings above £25,000 throughout the next 40 years. Many will end up making regular annual payments of up to £2,000 or even £3,000 and still not be able to escape the trap.
Analysis of Student Loan Company repayment data has shown that the graduates with lower prior academic ability, as measured by the average UCAS tariff entry points for their University, is strongly correlated to those having made lower repayments so far.
This data correlation, along with LEO career pay outcomes data, indicates that whilst course choice can be a causation factor in outcomes, the graduate’s pre-existing attributes of innate academic ability, work ethic and ambition, as measured by their A-level results, is a dominant causation factor of pay outcomes and consequent level of loan repayments. Specifically, the research estimates that graduates with less than around 117 UCAS points i.e. three B’s at A-Level & those completing BTEC’s will be highly likely to end up in the Graduate Debt trap.
If it is accepted that as a job candidate you are outside of the top notch academically, then attributes such as enthusiasm, people skills, reliability, hard work, aptitude for relevant tasks and physical capabilities are likely going to be more important to get on in your career. It is far better to demonstrate these skills by starting as a trainee aged 18 and learning on the job, or embarking on a shorter and crucially cheaper, vocational 1 or 2-year course set up specifically as an entry point to the workplace, rather than going to University.
Yet at a societal level we are all complicit in encouraging virtually every school child to aspire to go to University, and of snobbery and everyday prejudice against non-graduates where they are shunned as ‘write-offs’ if they choose work aged 18. They are also routinely blocked from applying for discriminatory graduate-only jobs that they could easily do without having to go to University and getting themselves into debt first before being ‘allowed’ to get a job.
The announcements from the recent White Paper on Post-16 education in many ways are more of the same. It talks about increasing participation in Higher Education; and just like the BTEC’s before them, the new V Levels appear to be just as likely to lead to University degrees rather than a job; it seems of little matter to the government that those currently going to University with BTEC’s are achieving the worst pay outcomes and almost certainly heading for the debt trap. The median pay after 5 years for BTEC graduates is £27k, the overall median is £32.1k. Though there are some positive noises about shorter HE courses in the White Paper, it won’t be successful unless employers are actively encouraged to employ the participants and not continue to be allowed to unfairly, and possibly illegally, discriminate against those without a full degree in job adverts.
Policies which I personally support include student number caps, banning graduate-only job adverts, making V levels an entry to work rather than University and introducing minimum entry standards set at around 3 B’s at A-level rather than just keep knowingly condemning hundreds of thousands into a near certain miserable debt trap; and leaving the general tax payer to pick up tab in the form of loan write-offs.
Young adults who enter the work force and avoid the debt trap should be lauded by society for their status as hard-working taxpayers rather than looked down upon as non-graduates.