Why savvy students might start to opt out of university | Sonia Sodha

Graduates celebrating. But a university degree is not always the best way forward. Photograph: Christopher Thomond

School's out, and many 18-year-olds will be nervously awaiting A-level results, hoping for the grades they need for university. In recent decades university has burgeoned from something the elite did to something enjoyed by almost half of young people. Big hikes in tuition have not halted this trend.

But is going to university a middle-class rite of passage whose days are eventually numbered? As the university system expanded, it was inevitable students would have to pay more. Yet ?9,000 a year seems expensive for comments back on a couple of essays a term, a few lectures a week, and some careers advice.

For many young people at mid-ranking institutions, university is more about the social transition to adulthood. And for their future employers (often the first to complain about the shortfalls of university as preparation for work) their degrees tend to be more a screening mechanism than a mark of quality. While it's a price tag Russell Group universities can support, is it really realistic for former polytechnics?

The question savvy 18-year-olds will increasingly ask is: "What will my degree be worth?" Plenty of recent graduates find themselves in "graduate" jobs that wouldn't have required a degree 10 years ago ? or worse, jobs that don't even ask for a degree.

Some jobs will always require an academic degree. But there are some, spanning accountancy to retail management to local government, where employers might be better off training young people on the job on an apprenticeship wage.

Going to university is not the social bridge to independence it used to be either: rents are so expensive that many young people have to move back home until at least their mid 20s.

The social status associated with a degree won't disappear overnight, but the current system is inefficient and unsustainable, and we should expect to see some interesting shifts. Young people will become more demanding: the consumer association Which? has already launched an advice site to respond to demand for more information about quality and graduate destinations.

Non-elite universities are going to have to get more innovative. Think YouTube lecture series reaching more students; and more cheap two-year courses such as the US-style system of community colleges.

Smart employers will prefer to recruit onto apprenticeships rather than pay for students' university education through higher graduate wages. And young people will look for other ways of getting the soft skills they need to stand out in the labour market, such as the CityYear scheme that places young people as volunteer mentors in deprived schools for a year, giving them a stipend alongside training and development opportunities that boost their employment prospects.

Academic elitism should be fiercely guarded in our universities even as they do everything they can to break down social elitism. In 10 years, the question young people may face in job interviews may not be: "Why didn't you go to university?" but: "Why did you think it was worth it". That might not be such a bad thing.

Sonia Sodha is head of policy & strategy at the Social Research Unit at Dartington and writes in a personal capacity

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/28/university-degrees-not-always-best-way-forward

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