Paul Wiltshire, founder of University Watch and student finance campaigner, argues in his new report that the HE sector is mis-selling degrees to unsuspecting young adults and extracting fee income via student loans on an industrial scale.
Student loan fraud comes in more than one form
According to latest news’ reports, student loans are being doled out for fictitious courses and quite rightly an investigation has been launched. Bridget Phillipson, Education Secretary, is horrified apparently that any taxpayer money could possibly be wasted via student loan fraud.
But there is another form of student loan fraud on a far greater scale that has been going on for decades. And it is being perpetrated by the whole HE Sector.
Universities sell degrees as if they are a guaranteed ticket to career success
During the course of my campaigning a university lecturer recently told me the following, which is a damning statement of the parlous state of over-selling of degrees and the bloated nature of the HE sector: –
“we have essentially gotten rid of any entry requirements here, so lots of our students don’t seem to have any A-Levels, or they have say a D, an E, maybe sometimes a C. So they’ve nonetheless been funnelled into the uni that they can’t afford (because the schools are incentivised to do it and hey, what else is out there- not apprenticeships that’s for sure); they work all hours in retail or fast food to fund it; and best case scenario they’ll get a 2.1 (but likely a 2.2) in social sciences/humanities; and then they’ll end up back in the job they were working in through uni but with thousands of pounds of debt. I think any change needs to start in the schools but ultimately without an industrial strategy and viable apprenticeships Uni will remain a sticking plaster.”
Yet, a university education is sold to us as the greatest form of social mobility possible, and as an enabler to wealth and prosperity for individuals and wider society. We have lapped up this message and the %HE participation just keeps rising; what parent or teacher doesn’t now virtually indoctrinate children into the notion to aspire to get a degree? Half of this generation are emerging aged 21+ with a degree (and not to forget, a debt) into the working world, but increasingly are hitting a jobs market that isn’t welcoming them in quite the way in which was ‘advertised’; in fact, many are finding it a hostile environment. Yet in studying hard and getting a degree they have all done what society told them to do, so why are so many being stranded with a degree that they can’t convert to a decent job of choice?
There is no graduate premium for marginal candidates
My report, just published, goes a long way to offering an explanation. It demonstrates that despite what the HE sector is telling us, gaining a degree is absolutely not a one-way ticket to higher career pay. In fact, it shows that the graduate premium diminishes for the extra candidates added as %HE participation rates rise, to the extent that by the time we reached 30% HE participation, which was about 20-25 years ago, any further graduates added are on average not getting any extra pay than non-graduates. So, we have been actively encouraging more and more young adults to attend HE from lower prior academic attainment, and they have ended up in careers they could have got as 18-year-olds, and their pay is not improved.
Graduates are in careers with no relevance to their degree subject
And even for the graduates within the first 30%, who are still achieving a modest premium on average, whether their actual degree had anything to do with it is not at all clear, as few end up in careers with even a tenuous link to their degree subject. Yet despite this, the HE sector is successfully putting more and more jobs behind a quasi HE paywall, where employers won’t consider candidates unless they are graduates, even though the actual course isn’t actually relevant for the job. So the definition of a graduate job, in terms of how roles are advertised, is becoming ever wider and it now includes nearly all jobs where innate academic ability is critical (so having good A-levels isn’t sufficient, you have to have converted this to a degree) and also even the most basic of trainee positions. Clearly if the jobs market is saturated with graduates, then employers will favour 21-year-old graduates if they can pay them the same as 18-year-old school leavers.
Universities are pursuing growth and profits: young adults are used as cannon fodder
The Government has set up universities to operate as profit & growth-seeking commercial enterprises in a market-based system; it is little wonder then that they have devised techniques to maximise revenues. And it is our children who are the unwitting vestibules used to extract taxpayer funds into the coffers of the HE sector via student fees. The actual career outcomes for their students are at best a secondary concern. The HE sector continues to drum up trade by issuing numerous reports ‘demonstrating’ the worth of a degree, but my report has found that the statistics being made available by the Govt statistical bodies simply aren’t good enough, and even worse, leave the HE sector free to be able to misinterpret them and spin them in a positive light.
HE sector has become a main source of intergenerational unfairness
Society is failing our young adults and ironically, given its ‘opportunity-for-all’ image, the HE sector has been allowed to become one of the main sources of intergenerational unfairness. Year after year it is churning out hundreds of thousands of graduates who are going to earn less or only a very modest amount more than non-graduates, yet they will have to contend with an extra 9% tax on earnings above £25k for decades. It is completely irresponsible for the Government to allow this level of mis-selling & exploitation to continue, and they need to get a grip on the course choices and overall numbers of graduates. They need to ensure that future generations don’t continue to be enticed into signing up for degrees that simply aren’t doing them any good and leaving so many disillusioned and burdened by debt before they even start out in life. There is no shame going to work aged 18, we shouldn’t tell all our children that entering HE is de facto compulsory if you want to succeed. More often than not, simply getting a job and learning from your colleagues with informal and formal on-the-job training is the most effective way to develop your career and employers should be given more encouragement to start to recruit more 18-year-olds again.
Paul Wiltshire is the founder of University Watch. You can read Paul’s research report here.