What if you couldn't go to Uni till you were 19?

breaking_free

I was talking to my partner about his daughter’s university application process when an off-the-wall idea occurred to me to reduce the student loan problem.

What if there was a compulsory one- or two-year gap between leaving school and applying for university?

IF we enforced a time gap between school and university the ex-high schooler will either:
1. get a job, decide that they like having a wage coming in and choose to stay in work.
OR
2. get a job, decide that they want to further their career prospects and so apply to university after the gap year has elapsed.
OR
3. faff around on the dole for the duration of the time gap.

Student loans are hugely expensive and there’s the very real possibility that a student will not complete their courses because they’ve changed their mind/ realized they’re not in the mindset to commit 4 years of their life to studying/ realized they’re not cut out to do their chosen degree after all.

When I finished high school I didn’t know what I wanted to do so I opted for uni. I wasn’t in the right mind set so I dropped out after the first year and went off travelling. Luckily for me this was two decades ago so I didn’t have hefty fees to pay back. I was doing a pretty pointless degree anyway that probably wouldn’t have lead to a well paid job.

Making ex-high schoolers have a gap year before applying for uni will potentially weed out those who, like myself, didn’t know what to do once I left school. It will also weed out those who discover they’re quite happy in jobs that don’t require a degree.

“But what about the huge flood of high schoolers entering the job market each year? Lots of them will just end up on unemployment benefit won’t they?” Doubtless this is correct, but isn’t this already the case? And wouldn’t paying the jobless high schoolers unemployment benefit for a year be far less expensive than paying the first year’s student loan?

There are too many unemployed or underemployed people with costly degrees that they’ll never be able to afford to pay back. I think we should discourage students from getting massively into loan debt unless they’re fully committed to seeing out their degree and have the aptitude to complete it. I reckon many of them don’t have enough life experience to make that decision until they’ve been in the work force (I fell into that category). FWIW I went back to uni as an adult and got a computing degree.

No doubt I’ve missing some howlingly obvious arguments against my gap-year idea so I’d love to hear your thoughts.

PasturesNew

I've always thought it'd be a better idea - even if just because students could have time to look around at courses available, knowing what their results would be - reducing all the wasted time in Open Days for places you'll never get into and "it's an offer IF you get XYZ" letters.

Knowing what they've got they can really think where they want to go/what they want to do - without Open Days and travelling back/forth/all over the place interfering with their A level studies/revision time, etc.

lisyloo

The downside is for those that are sure what they want to do you are imposing an unnecessary 12 month wait.
I don't know how many are sure and how many are unsure so couldn't say whether it was justified but if I was sure then I'd consider going abroad, so that could initiate a bit of a brain drain if the UK loses the best talent.

Eric_the_half_a_bee

While I have sympathy with your concerns, an enforced gap simply won't work with some subjects. For example, a number of universities do not allow a gap year for maths and physics students, because their ability deteriorates too quickly when out of practice.

westernpromise

breaking_free wrote: »

Student loans are hugely expensive

No they aren't. Even including the student loan repayments, a graduate today pays a lower rate in tax than I did 30-odd years ago, at which time everybody paid what I paid including those with no degree.

The value of student loans is that they should make people stop and think, before embarking on a degree, whether the degree is the right way to acquire the skill they seek and whether the cost is worth it.

When I was 17, I ruled out a modern languages degree because of this. All I wanted was to speak German and French fluently, because why else would you learn them. I saw no reason to do a four-year degree to achieve this, when the main outcome could be attained by spending the long vacation working in one or other of those countries. So I did a three year course in something else, because the other benefits of a language degree were insufficient and the language fluency benefit was perishable anyway.

If OTOH you want to be an art valuer or auctioneer you are going to need a History of Art degree to be credible. Working at Sotheby's for two summers won't get you there.

lisyloo

The value of student loans is that they should make people stop and think

A middle-aged friend with offspring planning to go to uni told me that they are all told to adopt the mindset that it's just a piece of paper.
If that is being drilled into them in a widespread way then its not acheiving that aim.

westernpromise

That what's a piece of paper, the degree or the loan-that's-not-a-loan?

breaking_free

Some really good opinions here - keep 'em coming.

lisyloo

westernpromise wrote: »

That what's a piece of paper, the degree or the loan-that's-not-a-loan?

The loan that's not a loan.
They don't have to consider it as real money because it's simply a tax on (good) future earnings.

I'm not criticising young people here, but the way it's being sold to them.

LHW99

Not sure what I would have done, as I went through secondary school 2 years younger than everyone else and finished uni at 19. I would have really hated to be told "you've got to wait until you're 19 to go"

westernpromise

lisyloo wrote: »

The loan that's not a loan.
They don't have to consider it as real money because it's simply a tax on (good) future earnings.

I'm not criticising young people here, but the way it's being sold to them.

I'd call that an accurate characterisation.