Over educated--Under utilized

Personal view: Why go to university? We need plumbers, not more media graduates

By Ruth Lea (Filed: 29/08/2005)


It is A-level time again and many young people are making their final decisions about university entrance.

Doubtless their motives for going to university vary but surely one of the most important reasons is to enhance career prospects and lifetime earnings. There is, however, increasing evidence that a degree does not necessarily improve employability and earnings. Indeed it may even harm it. Degrees - and universities - should come with health warnings.

In the very early 1960s the percentage of young people going to university was just over 5pc. By 1970 it had reached 15pc and stayed around this level throughout the 1970s and most of the 1980s. Participation rates then "took off" in the late 1980s and reached about a third in 1994, when the then Conservative government called a halt to further expansion.

Since then participation rates have soared again as the Labour Government has sought to achieve its 50pc target of all under-30s participating in higher education (HE) by 2010. Over the past three years the rate has, however, stuck at 43pc and there are currently few expectations that the 50pc target will be hit by 2010 or even 2015.

Putting aside whether the 50pc target made any sense in the first place (I believe not) and whether it will be reached, a third issue is of crucial importance to the young people who are embarking on a university course: does a degree make any economic sense?

Will the direct costs of studying at university, along with three to four years of forgone income, pay dividends or would it be better financially to leave school after A-levels and enter employment with professional and/or vocational training?

The DfES makes great play of its estimate that the graduate earnings premium, the average increase in total lifetime earnings enjoyed by a graduate compared with a non-graduate, is as high as £400,000. This handsome premium was, incidentally, used by the Government to justify the increase in tuition fees to £3,000 (which is due to start next year).

But the DfES calculation is fundamentally flawed. . . .