Is a University degree worth it?

de_g.

At 11, what matters is not whether she might do a degree or not, but that you show the aspiration for her to succeed to the extent of her abilities. Encouraging her to aim for uni from 11 will hopefully help make sure that she works hard enough to give herself a range of options when it comes to making GCSE and then FE choices; if she subsequently decides uni isn't for her she will still have better scope to achieve in whatever direction she decides to take.

prowla

Regardless of the money owed and the potential for enhanced earnings or not, I think University is worth it.

pawsies

Also the tories may not be in power then, so uni tuition fees could go back to how they were?

No idea if that would happen but it's a possibility.

Just save now anyway, if she doesn't go to uni you could put it towards a mortgage or whatever for her

notanewuser

I didn't get my degree until I was in my late 20s. I went down the OU route. I'd recommend it. You can work and study and make much better use of your time.

FBaby

I have been wondering the same thing. I was brought up that going to university was THE only option, however, not really knowing what I wanted to do, I went for Business, before switching to Psychology, and later on went on to do a Master’s in business. All well, but in the way got the need to support myself and not get too picky about the jobs I was applying too and subsequently was offered.

The result is that I have a decent job, but one that didn’t require all the education I followed AT THE TIME. My colleague who does exactly the same job stopped after her ‘o’ levels, started as a PA and was promoted many times after that. The difference between us two is that whilst I was paying for an education (with the help of my parents), she was buying her first property so by the time we started our current job, she had already been a house owner for over 10 years when I had only bought my property at a much dearer price!

Saying that, all this was when the economy was flourishing. Would she have been able to get these promotions (having to apply for them against other candidates) so easily in our current climates where competition for jobs is so stiff! On a positive, I believe that my degrees have made my CV appealing and therefore offered more opportunities for interviews.

In the end, I think the decision should be dependent on how academic the children are and whether they have some idea of what they want out of it. There is a big difference between studying to gain experience in a particular skill with good prospect of employment and studying for the pleasure of studying where jobs prospects are limited. Both my children are very academic, especially in the field of Mathematics and Sciences, so I very much expect them to go on to study at University and would probably be upset if they didn’t, unless they had a very good reason not to do so and a plan to secure reasonable employment.

InsideInsurance

andrewjf wrote: »

Do you think it's true that not having a degree creates a 'glass ceiling' where you can't progress any further in your career? Probably depends on work area I suppose.

I agree totally on the last point. If she wants to set up her own gastropub then having a degree in History is unlikely to ever be of much assistance.

If she wants to stay in the world of being an employee then the lack of an undergraduate degree may cause a challenge. A former colleague who was the Managing Director of a well known UK insurance company dropped out of university as a teenager but subsequently got an Open University degree because he found that people were surprised/ concerned that someone at Director level of a blue chip company didnt have a degree

That said of cause, I hire business analysts for 60k (perm) or 550 a day (contractor) and 90% of them have a degree listed on their CV but not once have I ever considered asking for proof of it but I have asked them to prove they have certain professional qualifications.

Degrees do have more importance if you want to jump into supervisory/ lower management roles without working your way up. They then pretty much disappear but some have said they resurface when you get to the upper levels.

Of cause there is the argument that if you'd started at the bottom rung could you have gotten to a supervisory/ lower management role by the time you'd have got to the end of university.

andrewjf

Interesting points being raised here folks.
On the subject of Open University degrees, I wonder why more people don't do this. Do you think an OU degree has less 'weight' than one from a redbrick university? It seems like a much cheaper route to getting a degree.

But you can see that the decisions made here can impact the rest of your life. I'm sort of lucky because by chance I picked a subject I liked, and it turned out I enjoy the job. But at this stage, retraining for a different career is out of the question. No way could I match my current salary doing anything else.

In some ways I do think that we're putting young adults into higher education too soon. At 20 years old you've got over 45 years working ahead of you. Why rush?
I think it's far better to work for a couple of years and find the right job.

HaleyT

University isn't just about education, its also about the contacts you make. Something that is difficult to replicate with the OU. I also recommend a 'wait and see' policy. Who knows where the job market will be in 10 years.

Best wishes

Who?_me?

SHE'S 11!!!! You have another 7 years and with the current idiot in charge of education, who knows what the situation will be then. Who knows what apprenticships will be? Higher ones that include a degree? The rate things are going, you won't need a degree to be a teacher. I would say let her find out what she wants to be, who she is as a person. Going to Uni is a great way to gain independance, but equally, doing a degree for the sake of having one is not worth it.

somethingcorporate

If she has shown interest in certain areas of academia (science, maths etc) then she may want to do a degree out of interest rather than out of a desire to gain a certain job at the end.

I did a degree for utility, hated it but did well and now have a very reasonable job 5 years after graduating as a result of joining a blue-chip grad scheme.

I wish I was one of those lucky people that did things because they were genuinely interested in learning about it!