The Debate: Is university now a waste of money?
As graduates struggle to find jobs, let alone those that are well paid, is university still worth the cost? We hear the case for and against in this week’s Debate
YES: A quarter of UK graduates can expect to be financially worse off from attending university
With student debt rising, the cost of living increasing and AI changing the skills employers need, attending university rarely offers enough value to justify the cost.
Despite it remaining the default route for many young adults, university doesn’t guarantee a job on graduation. More than 40 per cent of 2024 students still weren’t in full-time employment 15 months after graduating, and recent figures estimate that as many as a quarter of UK graduates can expect to be financially worse off from attending university.
Schools remain obsessed with university applications, giving far less guidance, if any, to those exploring apprenticeships or entering the workplace, often leaving them feeling ignored or simply not good enough.
And OK, while some professions warrant a degree, many individuals can be just as successful as graduates by taking an alternative route, without the weight of debt holding them back for decades later. I started my career through an apprenticeship and progressed to managing director of an award-winning PR and communications agency. Different experiences and career pathways should be given equal attention by schools, with students able to make informed decisions by being made aware of the pros and cons of each.
The world is challenging enough for young people navigating AI, economic uncertainty and misinformation, without also having to fight outdated assumptions about what counts as qualified, and the rising burden of student debt. My own experience proves that curiosity, determination and the ability to learn in a real working environment are every bit as valuable as academic qualifications, if not more so.
Amy Lawrence is managing director for PR & communications agency Gingermay
NO: Throwing money is a bin might be a waste, but using it to live your life is not
University is not now a waste of money. Just because you can show better financial returns from other uses of money doesn’t mean university is a waste; and the return on an investment in university is complex and can’t be measured as if it were simple.
True, money can be used to make more money but that’s not all it’s good for. Taking your kids to the seashore is no sensible person’s idea of a waste of money, even if those funds could be saved in a bank or invested in a company. Throwing money in a bin might be a waste, but using it to live your life is not. Otherwise, why earn it?
What you’re “buying” from university has high and durable value across a lifetime, and often far beyond: increased capabilities, wider opportunities, greater resilience. Some might ask, isn’t that also true for vocational training or entrepreneurship? Yes, and there’s a good return on such “investments” in marketable skills: money spent training a plumber or starting a company can be quickly recouped. But that doesn’t mean that putting your money elsewhere – into a university degree in arts or modern languages or Byzantine theology or whatever – is a waste. The returns on those investments might measure up differently, but like vocational training, university helps make a person a person, not a production factor.
Humans are more than assets to be utilised. We are not quantifiable. We all deserve opportunity. And because university offers that it is not now, and has never been, a waste of money.
Pegram Harrison is head of the undergraduate degree Economics and Management at Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford
THE VERDICT
Graduate unemployment, the rise of AI, a student loan reckoning: in the last year, the traditional promises of a university education (i.e. better job and better pay) have begun to unravel, especially when it comes to the financial outcomes. In a particular blow for the case of higher education, recent data shows more than one in 10 graduates earn less that the national living wage five years after graduation, making Ms Lawrence’s point – that university rarely offers enough value to justify the cost – difficult to dispute certainly on economic terms.
But! But! But! Of course, as Mr Harrison so compellingly articulates, university is not just about financials, and whether something is a “waste of money” is not just about whether you can quantify a return on investment and plot it on a graph. Instagram grindset gurus especially (see Simon Squibb) are currently eager to encourage young people to throw away education and go to the school of hard knocks instead, but university provides skills (focus, self-management, critical thinking) you can’t put a price on – especially in (and not despite) the age of AI.