Students who have received your A-level results, please listen up. If you have not – or do not – get into a top UK university, don’t go at all. Results day is stressful. Euphoria. Relief. Disappointment. Frustration. Anxiety. It's emotional, but you’ll be fine. Just follow my advice: if you aren’t going to a Russell Group university or otherwise respected institution, forget about it altogether. Life is about making the right investments and university is pretty big one. It has to be worth every penny.
If, after the emotional roller coaster, you do decide to go to university, you are going to have a lot of debt. It is likely you’ll owe £43,000, thanks to recent policies from the suits in Westminster. This will be money taken from your income for years to come. (Perhaps even for 30 years.)
It is not just a financial investment. It is an investment of your time. If you live to 81, the average UK life expectancy, you would have spent 2.4 per cent of you life at university. If this is 2.4 per cent of your life studying adventure sports, tourism or homeopathy it probably won’t propel your career. It is true many have a love for academia – but if that’s not you, don’t be a sheep. Getting into and going to university used to be a big deal; now it’s considered the norm. Don’t let that fear of missing out sway you.
Time for some optimism: choosing not to go to university because you haven’t got into one of the elite institutions shows good judgment. The appetite for mass university attendance is flagging. In fact, the stigma attached to having a weak degree could be worse than not having one at all. It is a nice sentiment to want everyone to go to university, but in reality it’s not such a good idea.
To help you out, I’ve found some of the worst universities for graduate employability (via The Complete University Guide) and some strange courses to avoid. These universities really are the bottom of the pile and here are a selection of courses they offer, along with annual tuition fees.
The University of Sunderland: Fashion Product and Promotion (£7,800), Glass and Ceramics (£8,500), Sports Journalism (£8,500).
Southampton Solent University: Make-up and Hair Design, Football Studies, Cruise Industry Management. All these courses cost £8,050.
The University of East London: Songwriting, Computer Game Design (Story Development), Hospitality and International Tourism Management. The University of East London ranks bottom in terms of graduate prospects in the UK and they charge £9,000 a year for full-time undergraduate courses.
Despite the huge debt, and wasted hours of your life, university does provide you with general life skills. Like the ability to work with a hangover, pay rent, and call your mum every weekend. Virtues these may be, but I am certain life experience isn’t exclusive to university. It is just a costly way of getting them. Especially if what you’re paying for is a tumbleweed degree that's going to float straight past employers.
The UK has some of the world’s best universities. It also has quite a few average ones. So when you finally get through UCAS’s 10,000-mile internet traffic jam, try to think with a cold rational mind: is it worth it?
Christopher Giles, a Politics student at Bristol University
*Article first appeared on http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/10245793/A-level-students-if-you-dont...
Editor's Note:
While the author's advice on considering your options is a good point, his arguments may not apply to Singapore so well. In the UK, non degree holders can still expect to get a decent salary and can probably still earn enough to buy a home, start a family and save up for retirement.
In Singapore, non degree holders face much more stiff competition from low skill foreigners who depress wages and may make it very difficult for non degree holders to survive in this increasingly expensive island nation.
Do you think his points still apply to Singapore?