As school leavers around the world get ready to pack saucepans and pencil cases for their first term at university, the perennial debate about the value of a degree has been sharpened by a number of employers announcing their jobs no longer require a degree. The cereal and snacks group Kellogg made its move in June. This summer, Rishi Sunak, UK prime minister, announced a crackdown on “rip-off degrees”. “Too many students,” he said, “are being sold a university education that won’t get them a decent job at the end of it.”
Yet degrees do tend to boost earnings. According to the UK’s Institute for Fiscal Studies, a think-tank, male graduates will be £130,000 better off over their careers (after subtracting taxes and student loan repayments) — women will be £100,000 wealthier.
Universities can be a powerful driver of social mobility. Another study by the IFS found that those on free school meals who went to university were almost four times more likely to be in the highest 20 per cent of earners at 30 than those who did not. Sarah Atkinson, chief executive of the Social Mobility Foundation, says: “Beyond the financial stability this can bring, a university can open access to important networks that can provide a life-long career advantage.”
Salaries are a crude metric, says Charlie Ball, senior consultant in labour market intelligence at Jisc, a UK-based non-profit technology provider. “It is effectively an external arbiter imposing its own value on workers.” When graduates were asked about satisfaction, the overwhelming majority felt they were in a meaningful job.