Financial Worthwhileness: Is This How We Should Be Measuring University?
It’s a notion among many that degrees are not worth doing if they don’t lead to high-salary jobs — we see it all the time. It’s even been suggested that low value, creative topics should be avoided at all costs, unless students want to earn under the £25,000 threshold.
The point of most students attending university is for them to attain the privilege of pursuing a career in the field they have significant interest and/or skill in. Whereas, economists and MPs look at attending university as more of an investment — is a student’s time and effort in a specific subject worthy of the debt they will obtain from tuition fees and maintenance loans? In most instances, no would be the answer, especially considering Onward’s statistic which shows that apparently, 25% of students are doing degrees that fail to deliver long-term earnings.
However! There are so many other benefits that obtaining a degree in an area of passion begets
Going to university is all about life experience. It’s a chance to find your independence, bolster your self-esteem, broaden your intellectual horizon and form long-lasting friendships.
Most students go in as 18-year-old adolescents and leave mature, young adults, having had to deal with scenarios they may not have experienced outside of the university, such as deadlines and money management.
Studying an area of interest, learning it in depth and having the autonomy to choose your own modules is also extremely rewarding and fulfilling. Getting up every day knowing you are where you want to be and pursuing something you love is priceless, and even the UCAS website tells students to choose a subject they enjoy above anything else. The sense of achievement of completing a course you genuinely have a passion for is monumental — it’s a life milestone you’ll carry with you forever.
It’s not instant, so don’t expect it to be
For the area which an individual is looking to work in, a degree might be the only viable path to go down. A degree is a foot in the door, something that puts your CV into the ‘we’ll have a look’ pile, it’s not a guaranteed job ticket — it’s a process that can take time.
We have to work and compete for the jobs that are out there, nothing gets handed to us on a plate. Look at the Onwards study, it revealed that ten years after graduating, 10% of people will be earning less than £25k, what they deemed was an unworthwhile amount. We should look at it in another light; 90% of people, ten years after graduating in the field they wanted to study in, got a job they wanted and worked their way up. That sounds pretty promising to us.
It always comes back to the debt
It’s no secret that university tuition fees are astronomically high, and that’s essentially the argument — degrees are only worthwhile if the debt is justified.
But what justifies the debt? Being able to make significant payments towards it before interest makes it unpayable? We need to get out of this rut that student debt is actually debt. It’s not.
Student debt only has to be paid back when you earn over £2,083 a month, that’s the gross amount someone earns who is on £25,000 per annum. Even then, only 9% is expected back a month from anything over that mark. For example, if someone earns £100 over £2,083 a month, only £9 would be paid (as nine is 9% of £100, of course!). So for those people who believe student ‘debt’ is actually debt, you can tell them you won’t be expecting the bailiffs round anytime soon.
A life goal should not be changed to pursue money. Look at it another way — why rack up student debt doing something you’re not interested, in the hopes you might earn what some deem a ‘worthwhile’ salary? It sounds crazy now, doesn’t it?
Originally published at www.kortext.com by Matthew Maynard
