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Most degrees ‘only good for menial jobs in coffee shops’
Tim Ross and Jonathan Prynn10 Mar 2010
Most university degrees condemn graduates to menial jobs serving coffee in Starbucks, one of the City's top professional bodies warned today.
Teenagers would be better off taking a gap year after school and going straight into work, according to the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment.
Simon Culhane, the group's chief executive, said the only degrees worth having were firsts or 2:1s from the 20 top universities represented by the Russell Group.
Subjects such as business, maths or law are among the few job-related courses that will help students get ahead, but English, history and other arts degrees are a waste of time, Mr Culhane said.
His comments echo calls from graduate employers for the Government to scrap its target for half of all young people to go to university this year.
Ministers have launched a review of tuition fees that could see students charged up to £7,000 a year for their courses. But the recession has fuelled a surge in unemployment among under-25s.
Mr Culhane said too many young people had been advised to go to university, leaving the jobs market saturated with over-qualified candidates.
The earnings “premium” graduates could expect to accrue over a lifetime as a result of having a degree has fallen from £200,000 six years ago to less than £130,000 today, he said.
“Today's graduates have a tough time,” he said. “There are simply not enough jobs, which is why too many graduates are either serving coffee at Starbucks, or the equivalent, or have entered the employment market in jobs for which they are over-qualified.”
Formed by London Stock Exchange members in 1992, the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment is the largest and most influential professional body for investment banking and securities, with almost 40,000 members.
Last year City firms hired half the number of graduates they took on in 2008, with many industries suffering similar cutbacks.
Mr Culhane said: “Many aspiring students — and their parents — should be, and are, asking themselves if a degree is worth it. The answer may be politically incorrect and unwelcome, but if a key reason for an individual wanting to take a degree is to get ahead, then unless they are studying a relevant, vocational qualification at a top university and expect to obtain a 2:1 or better, they would be well advised to take a gap year and then enter the industry of their choice.”
The Association of Graduate Recruiters has warned that the Government's drive to increase the number of teenagers going to university had devalued degrees. The group called for student fees to rise and said ministers should abandon their target for 50 per cent of under-thirties to go to university.
But the Department of Business Skills and Innovation rejected the argument. A spokeswoman said Britain needed more highly skilled young people.
“Our universities have maintained a world-class reputation for excellence at a time of rapid expansion and we continue to have high levels of graduate employability,” she said.
Case study: David Rowe
I was always going to go to university. It was a place where I could decide what I wanted to do with my life and gain the experience I needed to achieve it.
I achieved a 2:2 BA Hons in History at the University of Kent — and gained £12,000 of debt.
I decided not to jump into a full-time career straightaway so taught English in Buenos Aires and travelled for six months.
When I returned to England in August 2009, I was certain that with my degree and subsequent travels a company would snap me up, despite Britain being in recession.
I spent months sending out hundreds of CVs which were met with rejection or went unanswered. I decided that the only way to start things was to “get on yer bike”. The plan was to go to company offices, request a meeting and wait. But I decided to take it further and wander the streets in a sandwich board asking for interviews.
I walked Fleet Street wearing my suit, with a board declaring: “Will work first month free, then hire me or fire me” and handing out my contact cards. I had a hugely positive response, and took a job at JCDecaux, an outdoor advertising firm.
The confidence I gained at university is what allowed me put that sandwich board on. Although my student loan makes my monthly salary slightly smaller, I wouldn't trade my years at university and the mates I met for a little extra money in the bank.
Reader views (18)
Does going to university have to be all about what job you can get? What about learning because it is interesting to know about the world, because it makes us more tolerant of other people, because your brain needs stretching?
I do agree, however, that young people need to be informed about what their course is really worth... you need to go to the best university you can, and you need to get a 2:1 otherwise employers are not really going to be interested.
- Jen, London, 01/04/2010 19:13
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Education should not be about getting a job and earning a buck. It should be about enriching and educating oneself to become a balanced person able to realise one's full potential. Sadly in the UK we are too focussed on 'cash' and too little on 'civil society'. We are falling behind every year and we'll rue it in the long run when we are left with a poor cultural and social awareness in our ASBO ridden communities.
- Wiseowl, London, 19/03/2010 13:14
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If 50% of young people have degrees then they cease to be a differentiator between job candidates. Hence they become mostly worthless and a very expensive way to put a few letters after your name.
- Graham, Reading, England, 11/03/2010 13:17
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Sadly this relects how successive governments have dumbed down degrees. First by allowing just about any educational establishment to offer degree courses, secondly by making these little more than degree factories and thirdly by allowing them to offer more and more irrlevant degrees. I am contstanly amazed how people can leave university(?) with a degree and are still unable to write a letter or simple report. Scary!
- Michael De Ferrari, London, 11/03/2010 13:03
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I am a legal secretary and left school and started off as an office junior and worked my way up. I've worked with many girls who went to University but ended up doing the same job as me.
- Claire, London, 11/03/2010 12:40
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I graduated with a 2:1 in Modern Languages from one of the Russell Group universities, and struggled to find work using my languages, despite often reading headlines such as "UK employers crying out for language skills". I eventually ended up re-training as a web developer, and the few openings I have seen for linguists in the UK usually pay in the region of 18K, and that's in London. Where language skills are cited as an advantage by UK employers, what the advertiser really means is that the advantage is theirs, as they get to pay below market rates to graduates desperate to make use of their language skills.
- Richard, Madrid, Spain, 11/03/2010 10:36
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I think the position is worse outside London.
People from less affluent backgrounds, non - white people, disabled people have additional barriers.
I blame the Conservatives and Labour.
- Abdul, Guildford, 11/03/2010 10:20
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Daughter, 3 years at uni, degree, has ended up working part-time cleaner at the Hospital.
What a waste.
- Cap, London, 11/03/2010 07:45
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I went through the University system late in life, I even managed to secure a job at University College London. However my first hand experience of Universities show them to be a big con job on the public at large. The only people who benefit from degrees are the tutors and lecturers, it's big business and these people do actually live in ivory towers and they do look down their noses at the rest of us. It seems the only degrees that do count now are advanced degrees such as a Masters or PHD.
Don't laugh, but people would actually be far better learning a trade, and going into business. Simon Culane is quite right in what he has said.
- Nixxxy_Plonk, Golden Valley, Az. USA, 11/03/2010 02:11
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Learn a trade ..PLUMBER ...ELECTRITION ....CARPENTER ..then emigrate .
- Vox Pop, Edison u.s.a., 11/03/2010 01:54
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Add to the list of pointless and useless degrees:
sociology, criminology, media studies - waste of time/money.
- Lb, Bromley, 10/03/2010 22:55
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Another Labour, "good idea," not thought through. Never mind the quality, feel the width. The idea of giving 50% of school leavers a university education and consequently a degree, just denigrates the degrees of our brightest and best. I only had a Sec Mod education; but I now look back at what happened to my class. Many have their own businesses or are senior managers. You don`t have to have a degree to get on in life. Its what you make of it. From personal experience the unfortunate thing about many graduates it that they think they are better than they are and when reality hits home their confidence is knocked for six. Probably better for everyone all round that they never went to university and got a job straight from school. University is not for everyone and this piece of social engineering by NuLabour is starting to unravel - again!
- Brian G, Norfolk Gorleston, 10/03/2010 15:04
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So Roy you have a degree in history and classical studies but you have a job in web development - why didn't you just do vocational courses like I did - 6 months and £2,000 and then get a job in web development like I did?
- Tony, London, 10/03/2010 14:40
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I have a degree in history and classical studies from one of the non-Russell universities, and I have a very well paying job in web development. I did get a 2:1 though, so maybe that's what makes the difference!
- Roy, England, 10/03/2010 13:43
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David: nice to hear that theree is no unemployment in SA!
Eastender I'll bet you wouldn't care to be treated by a surgeon who'd just 'learned on the job' as they did in the early C19 and before.
- Dectora, London, 10/03/2010 13:24
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Simon Culhane is spot on with his politically-incorrect analysis. The U.K. simply has too many over-qualified people and not enough jobs. There is no doubt that many degrees have become worthless through the dumbing-down of standards.
Pay no attention to the Department of Business Skills and Innovation - it is largely irrelevant and its spokeswoman is simply trying to "talk up" a non existent situation. This is otherwise known as lying.
The fundamental problem is that formerly competitive industries died, as a result of over-taxation and union inflexibility, and their inability to reposition themselves against overseas competitors. Until these issues are addressed head-on, there is no point in turning out thousands of graduates for non existent jobs.
- Ex-Pat David, Cape Town, South Africa, 10/03/2010 11:59
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For many jobs, 3 years working your way up from being a junior, will give you far more experience and employable skills than than the same time at university.
- Eastende, London, 10/03/2010 11:58
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hey, what about all those tube workers, studying part time for degrees in unapplied abstract sociology at the university of east anglia?
surely this will turn them into supermen?
- Scotty, london, 10/03/2010 11:47
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