Slopey
That does not address the fact that in order to acquire the degree it is necessary to forego three years of earnings* and spend over £10k on tuition fees and course materials. That deficit can easily exceed the entire cost of flight training and living expenses for a year. You are assuming that a graduate-level position is available (there are far more graduates now than positions requiring a degree). Then the lad has to actually get that graduate job, probably after a bit of temping or flipping burgers, work for a couple of years before he is earning any more than his contemporaries who have three years' work experience or vocational training. Even if he then earns £10k a year more than they do he could take more than 5 years to return to the level he would have been at had he not gone to university. Then he starts saving for flight training. So realistically he is looking at ten years in a job he dislikes, after three years reading a degree that he will only ever need if he goes into management in a large company.
It is also not really true. I know plenty of non-graduates who earn well - I wish I had ever earned as much as the truck driver I met who is doing his helicopter CPL at the moment (something I could not realistically afford even now), and I have a degree from a proper university. Ask some of the tradesmen in southern UK how much they earn. Mad_jock's gas fitter might be waiting to follow that driver's instructor, who was also a gas fitter before his CPL.
It might be true that recruitment professionals ask for a degree, but (sorry to be harsh about your job, I'm not being personal) that is just lazy filtering done by recruitment agencies and large firms' HR departments. Most jobs don't need a degree in practice (my first graduate job I was the only graduate on the team, even though my degree was relevant!), and small and medium companies often don't use recruitment professionals. Many jobs are gained by word-of mouth and through contacts, so that filtering isn't needed.
All that is without considering that nearly everyone I have ever worked for (earning more than I of course) managed very well without a degree. OK so they had started their own companies, or worked up to a high position, but that is another non-graduate route to pay for flight training. I know many people who did so.
Yes a degree will limit opportunities. However this lad does not want those opportunities, he wants to be a pilot. That is not a career that requires a degree.
*e.g. my job before I went to university, recalculated to today's earnings I was paid about £16k plus food and accommodation. Three years of that compared to three years of earning nothing and paying for accommodation and food in term time has to be over £45k (after tax) without taking tuition into account.
Last edited by 12Watt Tim; 2nd November 2009 at 17:14.