Originally Posted by Wee Weasley Welshman
3 years and about £15k in bills for a piece of paper you hang on the wall and think is some kind of 40 year insurance policy is nuts.
This. A thousand times, this. I finished a BSc Computer Science 6 weeks or so ago. Admittedly, economically this is a horrifically bad time to be graduating. However, right now with a fresh as they come degree (hell, not even officially issued yet, I don't even know my final award) I've been on job seekers allowance and housing allowance for the duration of this post university period. I'm not limiting myself to just IT jobs either, and am prepared to work anywhere in the country for the right job, anywhere in the North East for anything else.
The reality is, most employers (especially in IT) want experience too. Training someone costs a lot, and it's perceived that there are a lot of already perfectly trained individuals out there (is this ringing any bells with airlines and newly qualified pilots?). The end result is that I'm looking at what are pretty close to minimum wage jobs, feel I've missed out on three years of earning potential while simultaneously getting myself into £xx,000 debt and have wasted 3 years of my prime; I'm now 23. Do you honestly think that if I (somehow) became a commercial pilot now, and then in 20 years time lost my medical, this degree would be worth anything? Hell, it's not worth much now. The piece of paper is expected, it's not anything special, it's just a box to tick. The experience is what gets you to the interview and beyond. I'm not one of these people who say they're looking for a job when they're not, I do have a few leads now and am fairly confident I'll have a job quite soon. But it has taken a LOT of application work, and it isn't likely to lead to anything stellar. But I'll take any job over no job right now, regardless of its merits.
Given all of the above, a degree is insurance for nothing. As time pushes on it'll rapidly become less relevant. I'm not going to deny that it can't hurt to have one once you've got it, and for some people perhaps it's the right move. But relying on it as some form of golden bullet to not be flipping burgers if you can't be a pilot in 20 years is close to fairytale land.
Assuming I had a minimum wage job (I'm intelligent and a good leader, it'd be more very quickly) for 3 years and taking into account debts incurred from university, I'll be down somewhere in the order of £50k as a direct result of university. Probably more. Perhaps in the longer term I'll recoup that in increased earnings, but that assumes landing a job where a degree is required and experience begins to build. It also assumes a world where a degree really means something, and I'm sorry to say that I was appalled at the level of intelligence of many I saw at university. Increasingly, degrees are being watered down. Admittedly, I did not go to Oxbridge.
I recognised all of the above early into my second year, but felt I was too time and money commited by that point to back out. The bottom line is, a degree on its own is a lot more worthless than many will lead you to believe. By all means get solid A-Levels and job related qualifications etc. But don't expect that degree that's been gathering dust for 20 years to be dusted off and land you a £35k job; it just wont. There are of course reasons to get a degree, but I'd think long and hard about whether a degree is truely right for you, and for what reasons. If your reasons contain words like "backup", well then I'd suggest double and triple checking the validity of that assumption.
Apologies for the long post.