I'm probably opening a huge can of worms, but....
I can't quite see what all the fuss is about stupendousman's post. Now obviously if you have a chip on your shoulder about graduates then you can probably read it in a particular way and take huge offence, but I'm not sure that was his point.
As one of the much-vilified-on-this-thread graduate filth, I can see compelling reasons for recruiting a balanced mix of DE and graduates. Surely the whole point of the RAF's lengthy selection procedure is to weed out the best of both worlds?
Tigs - not all of us have a burning passion to be CAS, so there's probably still room for some graduates in the system. Your QWI mate is a fine chap and definitely going places, but I wouldn't swap places with him and give up all the great times I had in my early 20s.
Zoom, sir, can you seriously not think of anything good about a graduate? Do you actually believe that every single one of the tens of thousands of students in the country at any time all fit the mould of your very tired stereotype? Does your only experience of student life come from watching the Young Ones or reading Viz? Here are a couple of ideas to get you started:
Almost all undergrads take a gap year these days and travel the world. A gap year doesn't necessarily mean smoking dope on the beach in Thailand. Some of my friends did things such as - living and working as a farmer in China for a year and becoming fluent in Cantonese, working in French or German ski resorts and becoming conversationally fluent in one of our European allies' languages, building a school in Namibia, redecorating a Romanian prison to turn it into an orphanage and helping to set the whole thing up, Camp America counsellors etc. I put it to you that an 18/19 year old that shows that sort of initiative, independence, self-confidence and yes, teamwork too, has something to offer the RAF.
A graduate will also have picked up a few other 'life skills' along the way. Many will have, as you alluded to, experienced some financial difficulties. The majority will have worked through them - either by employing some strange innovative money-saving schemes, or (this may shatter your illusions) by getting a job. I could list a whole raft of the daft buzz-words of management speak that the world, including the RAF, seem to love talking about too: time-management, inter-personal skills, writing skills, IT skills etc etc. I certainly learned a lot about each of them while I was at university. The things I picked up at university were things I didn't have to be taught by the RAF, and probably saved me from a couple of flight commander interviews. You can also be pretty sure that a graduate applicant has had a couple of years to make a well-balanced decision as to his/her career path too, so you're likely to get a well-motivated recruit.
I'm not trying to say that graduates are better than DE recruits at all. As I said at the beginning, I believe there's a place for both at Cranwell and each has pros and cons. But the implication that anyone who went to university spent 3 years smoking drugs, getting drunk, committing petty crime and staying in bed all day, and therefore has nothing to offer the RAF, is just ridiculous.
Single Seat, Single Engine, The Only Way To Fly