My son is making a choice on university or not. My view is that degrees are overated these days unless you want to enter specific professions that require a specific degree. My lad is more practical than academic and I'm certain he would enjoy a proper apprenticeship rather than an often worthless degree and a load of debt.

Any views?

I’ve got a degree which I see as a waste of 3 years, bringing debt, albeit paper debt. I didn’t do a great degree and probably didn’t put enough into it as I should have.

Personally I think apprenticeships are more beneficial because you are learning on the job almost whilst still carrying out ‘proper’ education. The only thing I would say is not to expect to get kept on afterwards as chances are, depending on the employer, they’ll just sack him off and go for another apprentice to be cheap.

The second sentence of that first paragraph should be enough to tell you it wasn’t an English degree.

I studied part time whilst working to gain my degree in the field in which I was working. I think this was definitely the best way as I finished up with both the degree and a lot of practical experience. I’d recommend that route.


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I think the most important thing is that he makes his own decision and that the most important bit of parenting you can offer is to give him all the support you can whilst he makes it.

Good luck to him.


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a lot actually depends on what his goal is in life. being practical then he may be better off just being an apprentice in the first place. we all know of cases of people , not that bright, who are pushed by parents to go to 6th form and then university. they come out of the latter and end up doing a job they could have done by leaving school at 16. one of my mates lads did all this and became a car salesman at mercedes. something he,d always wanted to do as he had the personality for that kind of work but it wasn,t his parents choice. mid 30,s now and his life has been as succesful as his parents was.

Back in the 70’s I travelled through to Middlesbrough one day a week 9.00 till 9.30 at night and one evening class on a five year course as part of my apprenticeship. That was 12 hours a week in lectures. How many hours do degree students spend in lectures now...?

An apprenticeship is a good option and better than a degree in a soft subject or from a poorly ranked university. Some apprenticeships do lead to degrees. Its what used to be called a sandwich degree. You quite often need a degree or a masters degree to get professional qualifications like Chartered Engineer status. The other benefit of a degree is that it keeps future options open. A lot of jobs are advertised with a degree as a minimum requirement.

An option is to join the armed forces and let them pay for the degree?

or Fire Police etc

I did suggest the forces route but as he was diagnosed adhd - as a little kid, albeit very mild, that route is not an option.

not for an apprenticeship, but many of us back in the 60,s and 70,s had to do correspondence course after work to gain proffesional qualifications for their jobs. these varied from 4 to 6 years. it was a couple of hours every night if you wanted your weekends free. i did it for 2 years but have great respect for those who had more self discipline than me and finished theirs.

My degree (graduated 2005) was the best thing I ever did (albeit I did have a false start and dropped out after 2 months and went back the year after) and launched me from Billingham to a decent job in the city. The degree was wank but it was needed to unlock better jobs. It was also the making of me, being away from home for the first time, making loads of mistakes but having lots of fun. Difficult to value the non-academic side of it but

...but I’ve paid back the costs in spades.

(Not sure what happened there!)

I did a degree for a year, passed , then left and joined the Civil Service. Over the years I've gained loads of qualifications equivalent to A Levels and Degrees. All may I add pointless. However potential employers apparently do like to see paper qualifications. Personally I believe learning on the job is better than learning how you should do the job in a classroom. HTH

It all boils down to what suits.

On the subject of paper qualifications, no one in my entire life has ever asked to see an actual certificate. I’m sure that’s different in specific areas but in general industry it’s background information rather than the reason you get the job.

Come to think of it, I’ve only ever had one job that I applied for. The rest were grapevine via people I know or headhunters.

[quote="Mr Irrelevant"]On the subject of paper qualifications, no one in my entire life has ever asked to see an actual certificate. I’m sure that’s different in specific areas but in general industry it’s background information rather than the reason you get the job.

same with me. never lied though about having something i didn,t have. did however remove one job from my CV by moving start and finish dates around a bit. was not there long and ended up flattening the boss.

Me too. I had a job once that I hated and left after six weeks. It’s never appeared on my CV because it’s irrelevant.

A friend of mine bought 3 A Level certificates........ended up as a MD of a big company.

To much emphasis is put on education and going to uni, unfortunately companies like ICI, BritishSteel, the Shipyards and the Pits who used to train up hundreds probably thousands of apprentices are no longer with us. Most apprenticeships are college based training, my apprenticeship was served in the field education was secondary, as long has you had the skills it didn’t matter what qualifications you had.

[quote="Jamie1952"]To much emphasis is put on education and going to uni,
because years ago schools actually realized where the majority of the class were going to work. depending where you lived it was one of the major industries in the town. these have more or less gone but schools still do not realize that many pupils will only be available to do mundane jobs throught their lives. further education just is not for them and makes kids feel second class citezens from day one. thats the basic non political message of BLM as a lot of em fall into that catogary.

I left High Tunstall in the mid 70’s did an apprenticeship with a midlands and Scottish based outfit my dad worked for at Hartlepool power station, worked all over the country earning great Money, house in Seaton, three new fords from Ewart Parsons but way too many hours so wanted a change.
Did a computer course at Hartlepool college in 1988 and joined bank, I found the work easy but I wouldn’t have got the chance after about 1995 as everyone who they seemed to take on had a degree to get a foot in the door.

that is a system where some firms have gone through but have ditched it. once a bus company in the midlans required all new apprentices to have the minimum 6 gcse,s grade c upwards. they found that some of these lads had no aptitude for the job and ened up ditching the system. good job for my lad and the top area boss as neither would have got a look in.

I said to my lad to get a degree as it will give him options.
Of The people I had working for me at the bank the older people similar to me you could set your watch by, the ‘degree’ educated computer savvy types were too busy dropping their lap tops in the bath, having bumps in the bank cars or taking a week off as their cat/dog had died.

even before the computer age my old man in his last days of working had no time for the highly educated in engineering. his comment was, you might be good on paper but its metal we are dealing with here.

if your son has a practical aptitude then an apprenticeship could be the way to go, there will always be jobs for craftsmen, plumbers, joiners, electricians and building trades, there are still opportunities for technician apprenticeships in the more technical trades, both technical and craft apprenticeships offer further education and a path to uni if desired. It can be quite surprising how non academics respond to technical learning in a subject they have an interest in.

If I was to recommend an engineering discipline for now and the future I'd go for something like System Engineering or Computer Science and in particular a specialism like Cyber/Information security.

At the present as a general rule you can only get so far without a degree. My grandsons (twins) both applied to the Power Station for apprentiships. One was successful the other went on to gain a degree in electrical engineering and had no problems in getting well paid jobs. The other finished his apprentiship and became an electrician. In order to progress he had to obtain a degree and is now an engineer (off the tools as they say)
Whilst Accrington grandad may have a point the fact is you need the engineer to design the job.

The present obsession with degrees in everything, when an HNC would have sufficed are ridiculous. I learnt more in one years practical on the job training than five years at college. I have worked for some shit engineers in my time and some great ones, but most never had a degree. Now a Degree has become compulsory, especially when required for posts that would never have warranted them previously. In design and research fair enough, but never to the level where they just slap a Degree label on everything.

The present obsession with degrees in everything, when an HNC would have sufficed are ridiculous. I learnt more in one years practical on the job training than five years at college.
you are correct. knew a lad who did motor engineering at college. started in september. by early november he got as far as changing spark plugs and setting up the gap. god knows what he did in the previous 6 weeks or so. firms however do vary in their outlook. my lad went to renault for an apprentice but was quickly shown the door as his school qualifications were more or less nothing. went to peugeot where the foreman took him outside to a car. he gave him a variety of tools and asked him to take the alternator off. when he had done that he had to put it back on and tighten the belt. he managed to do this in minutes and got the job. there attitude was that they required people with some aptitude for the job in the first place.

I fully understand you don’t need a degree to be a tradesman but if you aspire to further your career like it or not employers these days are looking for people with degrees or similar qualifications.

a lot depends still on the company you are going to work for. doing a bit of homework on em could help a lot. know that stagecoach are not everyones top idea of a bus company but if you are good with the spanners but not academically bright they may be the firm for you.

The clamour for a degree is simply a replacement for the old HNC which most engineers will have had. The ‘tradesman’ by the way is the one who makes it happen. This country gives greater respect to someone making an overpriced coffee. Oh to be in Germany where being a mere tradesman is respected and valued....and they don’t seem to have done too bad.

Of course the tradesmen make it happen but they are following the engineer or designers instructions and as I say these days employers look for people with degrees. Again I say it’s all about asperations.
In my day yes HNC was enough but they were hard to get but from what I learn from my grandchildren they almost give them away these days. Hardly anybody seems to fail.

things have always been like that for years. back when i left my local grammar school 56 years ago they tried their best to steer us away from being tradesmen into any old white collar jobs available. thought this job snobbery had died a death now since the 80,s when we were lucky to find any type of work.

Grammar schools before the comprehensive system was snobbish not just the staff but most of the students. However the staff were only trying to get the students to aspire to be teachers, accountants etc.

i wasn,t snobbish but most of the lasses at mine certainly were. agree about the staff attitude to jobs, but not everyone at grammer schools were bright due to getting through the 11 plus as a complete fluke and sruggled badly in their time there.

Look all I’m saying if you want to be a tradesman ok nothing wrong with that but if you have asperations to go further a degree is of great help.

Do you know what you’re talking about? I passed my eleven plus and over half the lads in my class were from council estates like me. You got in on pure ability, not how much money your mam and dad had.
The teachers were trying to get you to pass your O levels, simple as that. You’re regurgitating a few old myths there.

it was just the same experiance i had also. there was nothing wrong with grammar schools apart from the 11 plus examination which was a more than a bit of a lottery. quite a few should have passed it and others fluked it.

Grammar schools worked very well for improving social mobility for kids that passed the 11 plus. They did strive for academic achievement with little regard to technical skills and so naturally channeled pupils into the professions.

We all know what happened in the 1950-60s only grammar school pupils got the chance to go to university. Times have changed and rightly or wrongly employers look kindly on applicants with a decent degree.

Wrong. Most grammar school pupils did not go to University, they got jobs. Nowadays when every one horse town appears to have a university, is a contrast to how it really was then. There weren’t that many university’s to go to so it made a degree special. Along comes Blair and announces 50% of all pupils should go to university...for what? He also debased apprenticeships by tagging the label on six week shelf stacking exercises and calling it a retail apprenticeship.

I didn’t say most grammar school pupils went to university I said only grammar school pupils got the opportunity.

totally true. think one of the resons tuition fees were brought in to lower the student numbers. unfortunetly this makes it harder for those from poor backgrounds in going to university. back in the grammar school days this situation did not apply to poorer kids as basically it was about intelligence.

Drug dealers make more money than these posh students who most of the time end up in there mid 20s fulla debt and do a few nite shifts in supermarkets.

All students are not posh, I am not posh (a Wagga lad) and my four grandchildren, (whose parents do not have degrees) all have degrees and-as a result have good well paid Jobs. It’s all about asperations
The ones who end up in the supermarkets have probably taken some useless degree and wasted their time then again they may end up supermarket managers.

[quote="Johnjo1"]
The ones who end up in the supermarkets have probably taken some useless degree and wasted their time
or used the course as just another 3 years to avoid the day they actually have to go to work. not everyone wants to work and they are not all ex students either.

[quote="Johnjo1"]
The ones who end up in the supermarkets have probably taken some useless degree and wasted their time
or used the course as just another 3 years to avoid the day they actually have to go to work. not everyone wants to work and they are not all ex students either.

[quote="Johnjo1"]
The ones who end up in the supermarkets have probably taken some useless degree and wasted their time
or used the course as just another 3 years to avoid the day they actually have to go to work. not everyone wants to work and they are not all ex students either.