It’s that day of the year again when the media bursts with shiny bright teenagers fizzing with excitement about getting into ‘uni.’ A-levels, T-levels and BTECs results set them on the rigid route they’ve been directed to since a primary school teacher told their parents they were bright. Fast forward three years and that fizz might well be flattened.
After forking out silly money – or rather parents who can afford it - for ensuite ‘luxury’ apartments being built in university cities across the country, eye-watering tuition fees for a couple of hours a week in the company of an academic and facing a £50k-plus bottom line on the Student Finance account, graduation day might not feel as exciting and full of hope as A -level results day. When the belief of a graduate job faded when they realised they didn’t fit the mould of a finance/management consultant/civil service/NHS graduate trainee and, at 22 end up working in a job they could have started at 18, they wish they had made different decisions. Then seeing old classmates they commiserated with for not making the grade flying in careers they started as apprentices or trainees; the type of vocational and practical training they scoffed at because they had been deemed “academic” by teachers, whatever that means, put the whole ‘uni experience’ in perspective.
Parental and school expectation set out at an early age with no prospect of diversion is not helping young people. Off to uni, never mind the distr.