Is a university degree enough these days?

When I started working in the early 80s a degree was stated as a requirement to get a “better” job. Odd how the senior managers and directors don’t possess like. By the time the company started failing (around 2006/7), they’d moved on to requiring MBAs , MAs or Phds, a bachelors wasn’t seen as being highly prized enough to be able to command the ludicrous fees we were charging. Yet bachelors degrees where still good enough in the Far East offices, who would still be charged out at the same rate as the highly qualified UK staff, Odd that ( and they wondered why we were failing).

My daughter’s now closing in on getting a degree, not sure what benefit that will be . But as long as she’s happy and enjoying, good for her. Oh and she’s hoping to go on to do a Masters, although I suspect only to be able to point out she’s better qualified than I am. As she hates playing the hands up if you’ve got a degree game 🙂

Nice article Becky, this is my opinions,

For certain fields (Medicine, Law etc) it’s near impossible to go far without a degree. For most other fields it isn’t essential, there will be people who read this blog and knows someone who succeeded without one. However a degree can give you though is a massive head start. As stated in your article, 2.1 degree seems to be a common criteria for 90% of Graduate schemes. These schemes are very well paid (considering the lack of practical experience the grad has), they have a lot of training and they often fast track an individual up the corporate ladder.

To get a Grad Scheme you do definitely need something else. A classic example of this is competency interviews, these are common at graduate level Interviews. You are asked 4-12 questions like,
When have you had a solution to a complex problem?
To answer these questions is impossible unless you have done a few work experiences/ part time jobs/ valid extra curricular activities. So in conclusion I would say that certainly to attain a highly competitive graduate programme a degree is not enough.

Obviously graduate schemes aren’t the be all and end all, but they are an obvious advantage of having a degree.

The question is, considering that University is supposed to be an education in specialist a subject, why should it be their responsibility to find experience for the students????

University was partly about imparting knowledge, but importantly about developing the ability to acquire and use knowledge and to investigate constructively. This, then, was designed to produce people who would be good at entering into a job role (commercial, service or academic) and progressing successfully. It was not the only route available but gave employers a means of judging likely ability.

Then the system expanded rapidly by turning colleges into universities and introducing courses of doubtful value. The result was a lot more graduates but inevitably the standards in some cases were reduced. Employers will be choosy about picking from the better universities and courses, inevitably resulting in others finding it more difficult to automatically find the job they would like. Activities other than academic, including work experience, outside interests and so on will help support entry into a job.

Choice of university and course seems crucial in making a more assured future, and getting your choice is down to innate ability plus hard work through school. In other words, effort is the best way to be rewarded.

I got a 2:2 in BA (hons) Business Management which I got in 2004. I still owe the SLC £10,000.00. I am still at square one not earning more than others who didn’t do a degree. The problem is the Government are telling people to go to university when there are not the jobs available at the end of the course. It has been like this for years even before the 2008 financial crisis hit.

It appears to me that for t