University education: a Ponzi scheme?

It has been a buyers’ market for university applicants this year, said Rebecca Ratcliffe in The Observer. Since the A-level results were published last week, colleges have been scrambling to attract students to fill unclaimed places on their courses. Universities have hosted pop-up open days and assiduously targeted students on social media, bidding against each other to appear higher on Google searches. The “clearing frenzy” has been particularly intense this year, and that’s partly due to a demographic dip in the number of 18-year-olds taking A-levels, which has led to a fall in applications. But another factor is changing attitudes to higher education. More and more students, it seems, are wondering why they should go to university and rack up average debts of £50,000.

Why indeed, asked Nick Timothy in The Daily Telegraph. Successive governments have sought to expand university participation, in the belief that it benefits everyone. Yet there has been no improvement in the UK’S productivity as graduate numbers have increased, and many individuals have been left with little to show for their degrees. “Studies show that there are entire universities where average graduate earnings ten years after study are less than those of nongraduates.” It’s thought more than threequarters of graduates will never fully repay their debts. The system of tuition fees has become “an unsustainable and ultimately pointless Ponzi scheme, and young people know it”. Rather than keep herding half the population into expensive undergraduate courses, we should develop more vocational and technical training.

“Universities have come in for a kicking of late,” said The Times. But for all the tales of slack teaching, high tuition fees and overpaid vice chancellors, studying for a degree is “still a good bet”. While some courses, and universities, are better than others, the most recent research shows that graduates do, on average, earn more over their career than non-graduates – £168,000 more in the case of men; £252,000 more in the case of women. Plus, university is a lot of fun. But the system is in need of reform, said the Daily Mail. It’s outrageous that the interest rate on student loans is set to rise to a usurious 6.1% next month, at a time when bank rates remain on the floor. The IFS calculates that students, on average, will have accrued £5,800 in interest charges before they’ve even graduated. Meanwhile, university administrators are paying themselves vast salaries. No wonder students have been won over by Jeremy Corbyn’s “hollow promises” to scrap tuition fees. “Ministers must confront these issues, or risk alienating an entire generation.”