I liked this and agree

Pobby

Just goes to show how Blairs great idea of university works. £30,000 before you get started. Lots of useless degrees, which if you 18 might be appealing, in my case would have loved to do a degree in sound engineering, having spent my life in earning from music, i know that is not a degree to easily find work.

here is the video. http://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/mar/17/young-people-cuts-benefits-unemployment-housing

Kids in my family are on a struggle. Having to find big rents. No chance of paying into a pension as they are struggling just to live. The kids in work range from about 25 to mid forties. Nephews and nieces. One or two have their own homes with family help but that is about that.

A problem that is not going away. All abit of a large mistake.

[Deleted User]

If you've applied for 540 jobs and not got one then it's time to rewrite that CV. If you're in your mid forties then you had the chance to buy housing when it was all far more reasonably prices, and when the job market was stronger - no need to blame anyone except yourself if you can't afford to pay into a pension.

I generally see the under-30s as the generation that's been quite shafted

Sapphire

ringo_24601 wrote: »

If you've applied for 540 jobs and not got one then it's time to rewrite that CV. If you're in your mid forties then you had the chance to buy housing when it was all far more reasonably prices, and when the job market was stronger - no need to blame anyone except yourself if you can't afford to pay into a pension.

Mostly agree with this, though I know people in their twenties and thirties who are very successful. It's perhaps to do with upbringing and expectations. However, there are fewer jobs nowadays than there were, say, 2–3 decades ago, at least partly because Britain's industrial jobs have mostly gone, and because so much is (increasingly) being mechanised – something that SF writers and social commentators of the past did foretell.

There's also the fact that Blair induced all and sundry to go to 'uni' as their 'right', even if it was to get utterly useless degrees – perhaps he did this to disguise the fact that there were so few jobs?

British workers will also no longer work for a pittance, like they used to do (because they don't need to), so jobs that don't pay well are taken by foreigners who are only too pleased to have them. Many people also appear to have been brought up with a massive sense of entitlement. I know some who are well educated, yet because their parents (who have worked incredibly hard all their lives), are fairly well off, they don't feel the need to work and enjoy 'chilling out'. Some have ended up with personality issues, which perhaps would have evened out if they were gainfully employed and had ambition. I guess it's the parents'/education system's fault for the way the children have been taught…:cool:

wymondham

mmmm. university for all.. possibly the biggest mistake we've yet to appreciate. I've got strong views on this!

Most kids go to Uni as they still don't know what they want to do, studying something they wont actually use when they leave, building up large debts that most will never pay back in their low paid jobs...

Gone are the days when those who were genuinely bright - future doctors, vets etc who needed a degree were the only ones doing it - maybe you knew one or two people in the town/village who went to Uni, and thought they were Rocket scientists!!. Uni is so watered down now that pretty much anyone can get in with mediocre grades. The more people who have 'degrees' the less relevant they become - ask anyone who is an employer. In the past those with degree stood out.... not anymore - in fact if you don't have a degree you might stand out more, especially if you can demonstrate more experience and 'rounding'??

My wife works in HR and they employ lots of degree students on minimum wage jobs, not doing anything like the job they studied for. On interview, most of these realise how much time they have wasted compared to those students who left school, went into an apprenticeship or managed to get a job and get some experience behind them. Those that turn up with degrees have a sense of entitlement and worth that are so inflated that they are almost unemployable.

Schools don't help. My bright son is avoiding Uni as he does not feel it will benefit him as he is about to gain an apprenticeship. The school almost bully him daily to go to Uni and even hound him to resit his A2 exam to try and get an A rather than the B he achieved. Forgive me but I thought an B was a good result and well within a pass? So he now feels his B was almost a failure.... I think the school want the results to go onto a table somewhere that benefits them rather than the student?

The box ticking education system is churning out people who will have problems in future...

rant over!

BobQ

OP, you are conflating two issues and their causes.

Expanding university education was a good principle. When I was 18 about 5% of people went to university, in theory those that did were selected by ability. There was an inbuilt bias based on your social status, but by and large working class people could get a free university education based on ability. Getting a degree means something and led to a good career in most cases. There was an argument that if 5% were allowed to go to university what not 6% or 7%. based on ability The massive expansion in university places was not wholly Blair's doing. The growth happened under all governments, but I agree it went too far and Blair could have stopped it when it was around 25%.

The issue was, however, the reduction in funding per head and standards. It was not sustainable to have this expansion based on a free education model. Now a university degree is increasingly meaningless as people who are barely above average educational ability can attend if they are willing to accept the debt. But nobody forces young people to go or to take on such debts.

The fact some have university debts is a factor in the wider picture discussed in the article but this is not the sole cause. People of the same age who did not go to university have the same problems.

The recession has been used by the Tories to justify so many punitive measures that affect people. The problems the younger generation face are I agree real, but it is about time they stood up and protested at them instead of meakly accepting them. Instead they take the view that protest not for them, unions are irrelevant and political organisation is somehow distasteful. Cameron was re-elected because a minority of enough people, of all ages, are doing alright. Society changes when people want it to change.

Thrugelmir

BobQ wrote: »

The problems the younger generation face are I agree real, but it is about time they stood up and protested at them instead of meakly accepting them.

Or they try to achieve something for themselves. Take up a vocational course. That'll reward them in the future.

zagubov

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Or they try to achieve something for themselves. Take up a vocational course. That'll reward them in the future.

Unfortunately the HE centres that specialised in providing those, the polytechnics/central institutions were recycled and absorbed into the expanding academic university sector providing duplication of existing facilities.

This has little to do with Blair. I was involved with a conference about this in 95. The vision was that the UK would expand its graduate pool by rebranding HE as a good instead of a right.

Instead of 10% of the population getting into the HE sector by merit, the intake would expand to around half the population via young people adopting thousands of pounds of debt which would be reclaimed (by what they called a "loan", as the Tories would rather do you the favour of giving you a loan than increasing a tax).

So employers would have a pool of graduates to recruit from who'd paid for their quals and would be used to be paying for their own education.

Trebles all round for the employers!

michaels

Of course the number of 'graduate' jobs has not increased as quickly as the number of graduates despite many jobs that formerly had 'non-graduate' entry routes being closed to all but graduates.

Problem is no one told the students contemplating university nor while they were there that half of them should not expect what they saw as a graduate job and lifestyle when completing their course so of course there is a lot of resentment when the reality of the situation hits home 540 job applications later.

zagubov

A long time ago Harrods employed 100 graduates as shopfloor staff.

My students said that put them off doing a degree.

I told them they'd got exactly the wrong message.

Getting a degree was turning into the baseline and was even more important now.

remorseless

ringo_24601 wrote: »

I generally see the under-30s as the generation that's been quite shafted

There're plenty of jobs for under-30s and apprenticeships too.
That's why lots of EU youngsters come to the UK...

BobQ

remorseless wrote: »

There're plenty of jobs for under-30s and apprenticeships too.
That's why lots of EU youngsters come to the UK...

That is why lots of unemployed graduates come too.