AMAZON on BBC1 Undercover

Aquamania

dktreesea wrote: »

That's the belief, but given how many graduates don't get work, let alone work in their field, AND the prejudice they seem to encounter when competing for jobs against their rivals who have worked, while studying part time, I wonder nowadays if it really is the road to a prosperous future most graduates hope for....

That's the belief borne out by the facts. The facts you have already provided.

You said 20,000 graduates were unemployed 6 months after graduating.

Well in 2010 (3 years ago with the average degree lasting 3 years - I know not all do) there were over 480,000 new undergraduates.

So presumably about 380,000 people graduated in 2013 (allowing for 20% those who don't complete their course for one reason or another)

20,000 represents about 5.25%

The unemployment rate for 20-24 year olds (being the typical age for many at graduation) is over twice that; 11.6% in November 2013 falling from over 14% at the beginning of the year.

dktreesea

sniggings wrote: »

I agree with that, the quality of degrees are poor in many cases.

But the fact still remains, if all things are equal the person with the degree would be more likely to get the job then the person without.

Yes having a degree doesn't guarantee you a job but it does help.

It amazes me that so many degrees are not employment focused, when most people taking degrees will hope to base their career on that degree, yet they still offer them and people still do them, then come out of uni and say I can't get a job...well they can but just not the job they want, it would have been different if they had focused their education on the career in mind, so these people have to hope the employer gives some weight to a degree in "Elvis", they may get some credit for the work that went into getting it, but not sure what career they were thinking they could walk into with it.

All these courses are masters at telling people what kind of wonderful career their qualification could lead to. They just forget to mention that, for all the geologists/computer scientists/media studies , say, graduating in any one year, there are only relevant jobs available for a small percentage of them.

As for degrees helping you get into work, sometimes they don't because the employer recognises you want a better job and will up and leave if one comes along. Or they prefer experience to qualifications.

dktreesea

Aquamania wrote: »

Well I have to say I am a little confused by this post you made at 3.45am on Boxing Day morning.

However, yes I do believe that is the case today.

In fact your post kind of confirms it really.
You say 50% of graduates are in a non-graduate job so presumably they are not using the academic knowledge they learnt at university anyway

If we add that to the fact that 70% of graduate employers are not seeking graduates for their specific acedemic knowledge, then I reckon it's probably only about 15% of graduates that actually do use that knowledge ... and they are probably the doctors, dentists, paramedics & lawyers etc.

So should we be subsidising further education - even in England university courses are still heavily subsidised by the taxpayer, and not always very good quality education at that - to the extent that we do? Since so many students at uni go on to work in non graduate jobs, why should we provide so many places?

For those who do need their qualifications to get a foot in the door, for lawyers it's going to be quite a poor paid door come next August. Apparently there are plans afoot to just pay trainee solicitors the minimum wage. It could be that this is a huge improvement on unpaid internships, but the minimum wage paid as a salary won't stretch to much on an hourly rate if trainee solicitors are expected to put in the hours.

No doubt accounting firms will be following suit. Then it will be a long slippery slope. Maybe nursing graduates will end up on minimum pay while they work up the experience sufficient to make their degrees useful.

Aquamania wrote: »

That's the belief borne out by the facts. The facts you have already provided.

You said 20,000 graduates were unemployed 6 months after graduating.

Well in 2010 (3 years ago with the average degree lasting 3 years - I know not all do) there were over 480,000 new undergraduates.

So presumably about 380,000 people graduated in 2013 (allowing for 20% those who don't complete their course for one reason or another)

20,000 represents about 5.25%

The unemployment rate for 20-24 year olds (being the typical age for many at graduation) is over twice that; 11.6% in November 2013 falling from over 14% at the beginning of the year.

And 47% of those graduates failed to get a graduate job. Did they really need to get a degree, at the taxpayers expense, just to work in a role they had the chance to work in without a degree?

It's about to get worse, because now the cap on the number of students a university can take will be abolished from 2015.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/10498852/Autumn-Statement-2013-Cap-on-student-recruitment-lifted-for-all-universities.html

Presumably this is a way, albeit an expensive one, to keep young people from clogging up the unemployment figures?