As Tuition Fees Rise, Students Ask ‘Is A Degree Worthwhile?’
Tuesday, September 20th, 2011Government Ministers will parrot the line that higher tution fees won’t stop people from applying to go to University. However common sense would suggest that prospective students, facing £60,000 debt before their working lives have even begun are inevitably going to be considering their options.
With a stagnating economy, the graduate jobs market is likely to remain becalmed. Not only will salaries be depressed, particularly at entry level, but post-graduate unemployment is likely to remain high. Most will carry eye-popping levels of debt, without a clue as to how it can ever be paid off.
With post-graduate options denuded, university may come to be regarded as less of the sure-fire route to success it was historically deemed to represent. Students and their parents will wonder if a degree is any longer a strict necessity, whether it might be better to defer or pass up the option. Colleges offering vocatioanl courses are sure to benfit from this reckoning, with arts and humanities being viewed as luxury options. And many more will opt to continue living with their parents and study close to home.
With job security largely seen as a thing of the past, the ‘school-university-job for life’ tradition will no longer be embarked upon unquestioningly with young people looking for alternative routes, maybe by building career experience and contacts (as well as saving money) prior to further study.
Acquiring some real-life skills and business knowledge when combined with part-time study of a qualification such as an HND may come to be seen to be not only as the pragmatic option but also the one most likely to succeed.
Moreover, with the increasing range and sophistication of courses online, study through distance learning is growing in popularity. Students can study wherever they can plug in their laptop, at any time of day.
The distance option also informs the student that study is not merely university then ‘stop’. They can always be studying improving, with their study tailored to specifically enhance their career, rather than, as now, offering often marginal relevance.
With the future a big scary wall marked ‘debt’, a generation is being forced to take a less conventionally-structured and a more liberating approach to study. The changes will equip them with a more practical outlook – and far less debt.