What's the value of a degree?: Stewart Darkin

Job: Writer and Freelance Journalist
Left education: 2010


“I think the time when a degree meant a passport to a guaranteed lifetime of higher earnings has long passed.

At the same time fees have been rising, successive governments have tried to get more school leavers into uni. This means a broader selection of courses, with a higher proportion of courses on offer being... how can I put this... 'more accessible' than many of the traditional choices. If you wanted to be an estate agent or run a pub, you used to start with a job with an estate agent or as a bar man and work up. Now you can take a three-year degree in Planning & Property Management or Retail & Catering.

Point being, more people are (or were) being drawn into uni at a time when it has become an increasingly expensive choice. If you're going to be a doctor or a lawyer, fine - you must have a degree and you'll get well paid your whole life, but most people being asked to pay these higher fees will end up managing a pub for Wetherspoons or working in the planning department. The maths doesn’t add up for them.

                         

I have completed two degrees, a BEng in Civil Engineering and then my MA at UCLan. The first time round, I was in the first year that had to take out student loans (for living expenses) instead of grants. I ran up £10k debts in four years and most had more. And that was without fees, still covered by the state then.

I ultimately left engineering because, in truth, it was the wrong career choice in the first place, but I don't regret my first degree in the slightest. That's because it was never an equation of cost/earnings for me. Being at uni (at Oxford Brookes) was just a huge laugh. I spent years caning it and playing at being a grown-up (but without the responsibility) and chasing girls and sleeping for days and watching Countdown. It was awesome.

The thing is, that was a time in my life like no other: to be carefree and young enough to make the most of it. No kids, no credit, no mortgage - just jeans, t-shirts and a library card.

And here's the rub - the government knows this. They charge students more and it upsets people and seems unfair. Especially when you take into account the maths. But they know that the prospect of uni is a drug.

All the people I know who didn't go to uni for some reason (and had the option) have unfinished business. They have cash and are ostensibly happy, for sure, but their experiences are essentially incomplete because a lot of them have never spent two weeks in bed without it mattering.”