Isabel Hardman: No wonder they question going to university

Bright young people are often right to think a degree is an expensive way to fall behind peers who got a job instead

Whingeing forms a low, easily ignored rumble in the background of most social media. One moan by an old friend, though, sticks in my mind. Why, she wailed, had no one told her before going to university how difficult it would be to get a job afterwards? No one cared that she had a good degree from one of the best institutions. No one wanted to hire her for the careers she’d been told as a teenager she could do. She was stuck in a menial job, miserable and unfulfilled.

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Even though graduates earn more overall, not all degrees are created equal. Last year the Sutton Trust found, not surprisingly, that the more prestigious the university, the better your earnings potential, with Oxbridge graduates earning a starting salary £7,500 higher than those from the less-selective post-1992 group of universities.

Few would question the wisdom that the better the university, the more money you’re likely to earn once you graduate, even though they charge the same fees. But when it comes to the earnings potential of different subjects, the study found even more substantial disparities between the subjects, with an £8,000 gap between medicine/dentistry and the lowest-earning subjects of psychology, English and design and creative arts, once it had taken account of university type and factors such as social background.

Read the full article here (£).