We Need to Focus On Pushing The Lower Class Towards Degree's

Reading the title, you may think to yourself, "but aren't most people already getting degrees". Well, in a way, yes, the number of degree holders continue to rise but it isn't the lower class that's overwhelmingly getting them. Only 26.6% of children with Free School Meals are going to university. (1) If your household earns under £7400 a year after tax, you are eligible. This means you are either unemployed, or a single parent who has a part-time job. So only 26.6% of the very poorest is really not a number we should be happy with. The poorest areas in Britain are the ones that have the lowest percentage of degree holders (2). Some people will say it's not only because the lower classes are being pushed away from education and that many of them are merely "choosing" not to. They choose not to go, but they chose not to go based off of a lack of information, a lack of confidence in themselves and the education system, and financial reasons, and they are actually the biggest factors in most of the under-classes decision on whether to go to uni. (3)

Growing up I would constantly hear from other people who are a part of the lower classes that degrees were overrated and not needed. Though, a lot of those people who have in fact managed to reach the middle class without a degree are not the norm, they are the exception. It is true, you can 100% have a life where you work a well paying job that you enjoy and end up buying your own house before the age of 40. But this is not going to be the case for the majority of people. The majority of people who don't have degree's typically end up unemployed or stuck in near-minimum wage work, forever hoping that at some point they'll be promoted in the job that they hate, or the sadder side with the people that have just resigned themselves to staying at the bottom of the ladder and have stopped attempting to get ahead.

So, to now try and go against the narratives that are making the lower class choose not to go to University.

• 1. "The Positive Benefit of gaining a Higher Qualification". Getting a degree will always be a positive benefit if your aim is to earn more money and have access to a wider range of jobs. (4)

The data here is clear, getting a degree will increase your potential earnings by 20-25k a year in America. In England, it's not as pronounced but still exists in a 10k pay gap. (5) To go even further, if you do one more year of higher education and get a masters degree, then you're increasing your potential earnings and job opportunities a great deal. (6)

Here I feel the need to point out that there are many different defining factors for the "averages" they are talking about here, and working out how much that groups earns. But overall, all studies show that there is a sizable money advantage to having a degree. Also, I am not saying that getting a degree = guaranteed high paying job that you love, but going by the numbers you have a much higher chance of it.

People always like to point out those who have degree's and are not earning a lot of money with a 'bad' job. But in that same sense, we could also point out that many without degree's also are capable of not getting to where they wanna be. I have met people that worked in companies for 25 years and not once got a promotion. 25 years and they were still working near minimum wage, in retail. Many, many people do not climb their work places and get stuck at the bottom for almost their entire lives. The risk of getting a degree and failing to get a well paid job, is a lot lower than the risk of starting out with no higher education. This is not even considering the type of job you may want, which again, you have far more choices with a degree. Here (7) is a list of jobs that you may never have the chance to apply for if you don't have a degree. In America, 35% of jobs will require a bachelors degree at minimum. 30% will require some college or an associates degree, and that leaves 36% of jobs where higher education is not needed. There are large chunks of job opportunities that you are being written off from just because you didn't go into HE. (8) Maybe a slight digression from the point, but as more and more people get degree's this will raise the barrier to entry for "lower skilled work", and in 20 years we could be seeing a bachelor's as what we currently see a college education, with master's degree's being the current bachelors.

• 2. "The negative impact of the costs involved in studying, and student life, forgoing earnings and financial independence in the short term."

When you have a degree you are more worried about getting a "good" job. Because you've just taken out huge loans that you now need to pay off. This is where I think we need to emphasise the importance of not just getting any random degree and making sure you research employability around the degree that you want. Here (9) we can see that just about any degree's in those top two will near guarantee you not only getting a job in that field, but averagely paid well with number one being 30k. I believe these numbers are only six months after graduating, and I assume there are a small % who don't even try to get a job in the first 6 months, so these numbers aren't bad. A more positive study (10), but do remember that this is a survey where the graduates chose if to reply, and all these numbers should be a little lower because I'd assume unemployed graduates would be less likely to partake in the survey. This website also shows us the universities' employability which is another thing you must consider. Do not forget that employability isn't the only factor, and the quality of the employment is at play, too. Outside of the top two, Oxford and Cambridge, I'm not sure there would be a great deal of importance worrying about the rank of the university. I found this (11) whilst doing research and I think it's a good way to get an idea of how much you might earn in certain sectors, as a newly working graduate.

So, money. Going by the numbers you could be getting between 8-15k (different studies quote different amounts) more than the average person who hasn't gone into HE. Doing a 3 year course to get your bachelor's, borrowing the maximum amount, you'll owe 56,250 pounds. If you are in fact earning 8-15k more than someone without a degree, you can pay that off and start working at a profit at either 4 years after getting a job, or 7 years at worst. If you did 1 more year to get your master's, you can pay it back within 4-5 years. Taking out huge loans and owing large amounts of money from a young age is daunting, but the long-term benefits far outweigh the choice to make money without an education. There are safety nets with this, too. If you are one of those few unfortunate people that gets a degree and ends up earning a lot less than you aimed for, you may never even have to pay off that loan. Firstly, you don't pay anything back if you aren't earning over £27,288, and then it's wiped off after 30 years from the date of you taking out the loan. Then even on top of that, you only pay back 9% of excess money that you made that is higher than £27,288. Say you're earning £37,288 a year, you will have to pay back 9% of £10,000, which is £900. That's it. If you're earning 37k a year, I doubt you are caring about a missing £900. The only ones who likely pay back their debts are the people in the upper middle class+. This if anything, helps those of us who are poorer.

I can't speak for everyone, but after talking to a few of my friends from lower class backgrounds, almost all of them had limited knowledge of university. They had no idea about the average earnings of a graduate in comparison to a non-graduate, they didn't know how loans worked, and they certainly weren't sure of how to go to uni if they wanted to. I don't know if I can say that's only down to the parents or the schools, because being in the lower class you may not have that role model that others do. A parent with a degree and knowledge of the benefits could be instrumental to a person. Personally I barely went to school and was kicked out, I only knew what uni was because it would be mentioned on TV sometimes, but I had no actual idea of its use to me in life beyond "apparently it helps getting jobs".

Though, there is another side to this. Not just the negativity or lack of information around degree's, but the trap of starting work as early as possible thinking you have a good chance to climb the ranks to the point you'll out-earn most graduates. When you start that journey and realise after a few years that working your ass off won't guarantee you a promotion, it's too late for some, because they've sunk 10 years into a company that either hasn't promoted them or given them only one, meaning they still only earn 50p more an hour. And I'm not saying you have to go when you're young, but the earlier the better. I have a combined 8 years or so working in min wage jobs, starting when I was 16 and totalling across 3 different companies. It seems there's a lot of different groups working in these jobs, but most of the younger people who have no intention to go to university, fully think they can climb the ranks. All of those who don't will switch job, and this is a large portion of people on weekdays, because weekends are filled with students. Switching job though is just a side-step, and could even be a step-down, but there are some people with 10-30 different jobs under their belts and they can't even name all their ex employers, and before they know it, they're middle aged. So they stay where they are out of stability. Do not get me wrong, there are some that prosper in these environments, and I know some younger people who have climbed to management by their 25th birthday, earning a pretty decent wage. I have some friends who are self made, running their own businesses off the back of doing apprenticeships. I have friends who coach MMA for a living, some who have good I.T jobs with no HE. It is 100% possible to be successful/happy without HE. But for all of these people, there are others who are homeless, unemployed, or working min wage their entire lives in a job they hate. It is never too late to improve your life and I think from all the studies I've shown here, we can see that getting a degree is one of the best ways you can improve it, get your money up, and get a job you will enjoy more.

1 - https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/widening-participation-in-higher-education/2019-20

2 - https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2009/oct/19/educated-degree-qualification-constituency-data - just slightly scroll down

3 - https://dera.ioe.ac.uk/4621/1/RR267.pdf - page 116

4 - https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/08/19/the-growing-partisan-divide-in-views-of-higher-education-2/ - right near the bottom

5 - https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/graduate-labour-market-statistics-2018 click the link they have on the word "figures", then download their "Graduate Labour Market Statistics".

6 - https://www.prospects.ac.uk/postgraduate-study/masters-degrees/should-i-do-a-masters - it's under the sub-title "Is It Worth The Cost".

7 - https://targetcareers.co.uk/uni/choices-about-uni/242-which-degree-do-you-need-for-which-career

8 - https://cew.georgetown.edu/cew-reports/recovery-job-growth-and-education-requirements-through-2020/ - Under "Key Findings", the full report is also available above it

9 - https://coursefindr.co.uk/degrees/articles/top-ten-employable-degrees/

10 - https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/jul/15/employment-statistics-university-graduates

11 - https://www.savethestudent.org/student-jobs/whats-the-expected-salary-for-your-degree.html