England's graduates start to suspect that a degree doesn't pay
For Sam Dooley, the exams are over but the hard work is just about to begin.
The young British graduate has just completed his last paper on modernist English literature. But the flood of relief and the post exam festivities have been tempered by the imposing challenge ahead: how to turn his degree into gainful employment that will pay off his $20,000 debt and make his investment in three years of university worth it.
"I've just got off the Internet looking for jobs back at home in the southwest," says Mr. Dooley, as he strolls across the sun-drenched campus of his southern England university. "I've got to go back to live with my parents just to start with. I can't afford to do anything else."
It's a challenge that confronts graduates across the globe. But here in Britain, where Prime Minister Tony Blair has called for large increases in student numbers and where the number of graduates has almost doubled in 10 years, the depressing outlook has prompted a vigorous debate about the economic and philosophical benefits of higher education.
Is a degree just about tooling up for the job market, and if so, is it a wasted investment if you can't get a job? Or is it about gaining a broader cultural experience and rite of passage that will ultimately benefit society in subtler ways?
There is growing evidence that a British degree may no longer be the passport to riches it used to be. Student numbers have exploded over the past 15 years, though the number of graduate jobs has not. Many will leave university more than $10,000 in debt, but one recent survey found that just a third of final-year students expected to get a graduate-level job.
"The results for 2004 are certainly the most gloomy we have seen," says Martin Birchall, survey director of High Fliers Research Limited, which interviewed 16,000 final-year students about their graduation hopes and fears this year.
"Debts are at an all-time high and yet it does seem that the prospects even for graduates at the top, of going on to well-paid employment are at an all time low," says Mr. Birchall. "Going to university is no longer a guarantee of finding a good job or even a well-paid job."
Still, Dooley says he would not trade his literature degree for more marketable vocational training because for him, the experience was about more than just preparing for a career. "I've had three years of being able to sit and think and read. That's invaluable. I won't get the chance to do that again."
For Mandy Telford, the experience has been delayed a year. Elected as president of the National Union of Students gave her a buffer, and a high-profile one at that. But now reality is about to bite.
"I was elected to the job, and started straight after I graduated, so I never had to go through that first job interview. I'm only coming to that now, and suddenly thinking about what I want to do with my life and it's kind of scary."
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