Is A University Degree Really Worth All that Debt

Two of my children are currently studying at university and I have often wondered if the final degree they receive is worth the debt that is going to hang around their necks for possibly years?

This debt could easily amount to 40k-50k. That in anybody’s language is massive. Especially as when they enter the workforce, their earning capabilities are very low and in all honesty, paying back university debt will be the last thing on their mind. What they will earn initially will probably only just about cover their living expenses on a day to day to basis, because even after years of studying, their starting wage is not going to be very high.

My daughter who is 20 years old is currently in her final year of a nursing degree. The one certain fact is she probably won’t struggle to get a job, mainly because the NHS is crying out for nurses. We all know people are leaving nursing as quickly as they enter it. Young adults entering nursing as their chosen career has fallen dramatically. When my daughter entered nearly three years ago, the funding was excellent and it was incredibly difficult to get on a course anywhere in the country.

The following year after my daughter started her course things were changed dramatically. First of all the tuition fees which were free were reverted to a loan, and would need paying back, and then the bursary that was funded by the NHS was removed. This without question reduced the number of young people wanting to enter nursing as a career. This won’t have an effect yet, but in a couple of years in what is already an understaffed NHS, it could be devastating that even less young people are coming out of university to join the nursing workforce. This for me is very short sighted of the government. It will most likely leave the NHS in a bigger crisis than it already is. Quite frightening to say the least that our healthcare system might not be able to cope with demands it receives on a daily basis.

My son is in his first year of university and is going to leave university in two and a half years time with approximately 50k of debt,  and he will not have any guarantees of a job, and also will not have earned a penny. When I was 21 years old I didn’t owe a penny to anybody, but nowadays it’s increasingly common for young adults to be shouldered with huge debt, especially if they have attended university. I only hope he can find a very highly paid job to be able to pay his debts off.

Of course repaying university debts are all related to what you earn. It’s a rising scale of repayments as your earnings increase and the chances of you paying it off before it is written off completely, are actually very slim. So I ask the question why are we charging so much for a university degree when so little money is ever collected?

My thought is we want our young adults to be very highly educated to help our country become a better place to live, not a lot of young adults with ridiculous amounts of debt, when all they were trying to do was better themselves, because ultimately we will lose this group of very talented educated people to other countries, where they can earn a lot more money.

Education should be free right through to the end of university in my opinion. We should be investing in our youth not penalising them.

So is a university degree worth all this debt? In my humble opinion no. The system needs to be changed.

In Wales this coming September they are introducing a new way of funding young people going to university, with new loans and grants, related to living costs. They are the first country in Europe to introduce this Read all about it Here

I would love to hear your thoughts.