High Achievers DON’T Need a Degree!!

Q. Why would you need a degree when you don’t need one ?

A. You don’t !!!

An article in ‘The Guardian’ talks about how ‘high achieving students are spurning the debt and further education of university in favour of employment’

Let’s face it – we don’t need to do stuff we don’t need to do. We do stuff we do need to do. At least… that is the theory

So… why is it then that some of us feel like we’re going to university because we ‘ought to’ rather than we ‘want to’?

Nearly three-quarters of 1,180 A-level pupils surveyed by the site said they felt going to university was viewed as a necessity rather than a choice. Over half said that parents contributed to this feeling, while a fifth said pressure from school was to blame. It’s interesting because it means that many of us go to university because we ‘have to’ rather than because we ‘want to’.

There MUST be some confusion in our minds as to whether the value of university is all that it’s cracked up to be because of course, if all we do is end up….

1. Wasting 4 more years of your life
2. Racking up £10,000’s of debt
3. Not getting closer to what you want at the end, or worse still not being sure that it was even of value
4. Not being qualified to do anything specifically at the end

Then you can see, that it would prevent people from making the big leap into university.

So, you can see why some other students are choosing an alternative …

1. Not waste any time – and go to FE college
2. Not get into any debt and maybe even be sponsored or work part-time
3. Be IN the workplace that you want to be in
4. Being qualified AND having the experience to do what you wanna’ do

On paper, it looks like a ‘no-brainer’ and in a further survey of university students carried out by the same site, it appears that two-thirds don’t believe they will find work relating to their degree, and one in four feel that on-the-job training or an apprenticeship would have served them better in building a career in their chosen field.

Hardly surprising then that some of these young people are choosing to do what they’re doing. It begs the question in my mind as to whether the same is true for those that are encouraged to take ‘A’Levels etc…?

Because, just because it’s been something we’ve done in the past – does it have to be the right way for the future?