Most uni students have part-time jobs

Recent research has found that the majority of full-time students also have jobs for the first time as the cost-of-living becomes their biggest concern. The number in paid employment has increased in one year from 45% to 55%, while students are also working longer hours on coursework. In 2021 the number was only 34%. Significantly, students with jobs were less likely to say they would choose the same university and course again.

Earn while you learn, at university

In a poll in January by the Sutton Trust, 27% of students said they had been forced to take on jobs or work longer hours as loans became stretched and other forms of income, such as parental support, dried up. A Ucas survey in April estimated the number of students working part-time was 43%. Graeme Atherton, director of the National Education Opportunities Network at the University of West London, said students working had become the “norm” in some institutions, meaning “ostensibly full-time students are actually part-time because they are working half the time”.

The rise of Degree Apprenticeships

In 2022-23, 42,060 people began Higher-level Apprenticeships in various fields, from policing and social work to sales and retail. That number is dwarfed by the 560,000 accepted on to traditional degree courses. However, Universities Minister Robert Halfon, wants Degree Apprentices to make up half of all university-enrolled learners in the future, and Ucas is to display them alongside degree courses from next year. Currently, about 100 universities offer such apprenticeships. Greg Wade, policy manager for UUK, said, “Degree Apprenticeships are in a good place. More universities are engaging, we’ve seen more employer demand and increased recognition of their value among policymakers. We see this as an opportunity to assess the barriers, ask what would encourage institutions to deliver Apprenticeships and then reflect that back to ministers.”

Graduate salaries are rising

The average advertised salary for graduates in the UK rose 7% on the year, to £26,076 last month, according to Adzuna, the job advertising website. Job vacancies for graduates rose by 59% over the same period, to 14,690 in May.

Companies are opening new positions and increasing the advertised salaries in an attempt to replenish their workforces with young workers straight out of university. The data shows that the legal and banking sectors are offering the highest starting rates, with US employers leading the way. JPMorgan Chase had a base salary of up to £70,000, with Barclays is offering £50,000. In the retail sector, Lidl’s supply chain graduate programme has a starting salary of £37,000. Aldi offers £44,000.

Degree class related to future earnings

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has used DfE data to analyse the financial benefit, in terms of the earnings premium at age 30, of students gaining different degree classifications. After allowing for the characteristics of different students, such as prior attainment at school, they found that women with a 1st could expect to earn 4% more than those with a 2:1, while the premium for men was 7%. The "penalty" for getting 2:2 as opposed to a 2:1 was reduced earnings of 7% at age 30 for women and 11% for men. However, the IFS study also found variations in the benefits and penalties of different degree classes according to which subject was studied and the type of university that was attended. For instance, both men and women who left university with a 2:2 from the most selective universities earned a fifth less on average by the age of 30 than those who got a 2:1, a gap that was much lower (6% for women and 8% for men) for graduates of the least selective institutions. The study says “degree class premiums are in many cases bigger than differences in returns between university types. The results suggest that those who get a 2:2 from a selective university would mostly have been better off with a 2:1 from a less selective one.”

Potential shake up to UCAS process

UCAS is to recommend changing the university admissions system so students will receive their exam results before getting offers for places. John Cope from UCAS said they were “cautiously backing” such a model. He said he wanted a system whereby students apply in the usual way during term-time but offers would only be made after results day in the summer. He said that the other option on the table, where students would apply to university and receive offers after 'A' level results day and then start degree courses in January, was a “step too far” was “not practical” and would put the country “out of sync internationally”.

Colin Hughes, AQA chief executive, said: “Post-qualification admissions (PQA) could help more young people get the university places they deserve, but schools, exam boards and higher education all need to be willing to give a little to make it happen. If schools can prepare their Year 13 students for exams that start a little earlier, exam boards can mark and award grades a little more quickly and more universities can move the start of term into October, there’s no reason why we can’t do this.”

Benefits of going to University

 [source: the i newspaper]

Decline in Graduate Employment

The latest survey by the Institute of Student Employers (ISE) found that the number of graduate jobs declined by 12% and that the majority of employers anticipated a further decline next year. Employers in the retail and consumer goods sectors made the biggest cuts, slashing 45% of graduate jobs. The ISE, which surveyed mostly large employers, also said that employers reported a 29% decrease in internships and a 25% decrease in placements in 2019-20 with further falls expected next year. Stephen Isherwood, chief executive of the ISE, said, “Employers have had to make significant adjustments. As a result, graduate jobs do not appear to be collapsing and school and college leaver recruitment is holding up, but the decline in internships and placements is more worrying. Around half of placement students get rehired, so diminishing these roles damages the talent pipeline.”

What is PGA?

PQA stands for Post Qualification Admissions. UCAS has warned that a major overhaul of the admissions system, which would mean places being offered on the basis of grades rather than predictions, could open up a “devolution divide” without an agreement with the devolved nations. Pressure for a PQA has been growing, forcing UCAS into a review, which has led to two proposals, both of which advocate PQA. The first keeps applications ahead of results day in August, with offers based on actual results. The second proposes moving the whole applications process beyond results day and pushing back university start dates until January. However, this is likely to be less popular with the sector and government because it would put the UK system out of sync with the rest of the world.

Universities UK has given its backing to a PQA system after an 18-month review. Under their proposed system offers will only be made once the university has received an applicant’s grades in August. Providers will then have a one-week window before ‘offer day’, and students a one-week window afterwards to respond, followed by a clearing process for unplaced applicants.

Rise in the Interest Rate on Student Loans

Each year, student loan interest rates are calculated according to March’s Retail Price Index (RPI) figure, which this year was 2.6%, plus 3% on top; RPI was 2.4% last year. It came into force on 1st September and affects all new students in England and Wales, and graduates who took out loans since 2012. The increase comes at a time when the Bank of England base rate is just 0.1%. A student on a typical three-year course with fees of £9,250 a year and a £6,378 a year maintenance loan can expect to graduate with £46,884 of debt, before any cumulative interest is added.

Going to university is still financially worth it ... for some

The Institute of Fiscal Studies has calculated that most students still financially benefit from going to university but 20% are worse off after paying for courses. Over their working lives, male graduates, on average, gain by £130,000 and female graduates by £100,000. The study shows wide variations between different subjects. For women, the financial gains of studying creative arts and languages are ‘close to zero’ Medicine will bring an extra £340,000 for women, economics £270,000 and £260,000 for Law. Men studying creative arts subjects are projected to lose £100,000, compared to their counterparts who did not go to university. For men in the top-earning subject areas of Medicine and Economics, the likely gain is £500,000. For both men and women there are low financial returns for graduates in English and Biology

Rise in university drop-out rates

Figures from the Higher Education Statistics Agency show that the dropout rate for first-year students continues to rise. England had the highest non-continuation rate at 6.9%, up from 6.5% in 2014-15. In both Wales and Scotland the rate was 6.1%, each lower than in 2014-15. Among mainstream universities, a number had non-continuation rates of between 15% and 26%, with Bedfordshire and London Metropolitan having amongst the worst dropout rates and the Courtauld Institute of Art the best (0). 

Michelle Donelan, the universities minister for England, said: “With high numbers of students continuing to drop out, this data shows progress is slow from some institutions to tackle the issue. I want universities to step up and take action as we cannot let these students down and let talent go to waste.”

Students are over-paying their loans

£28.5m in student loan over-payments has been unclaimed by graduates. In a nine-year period, around 500,000 former students overpaid on their student loans, paying on average nearly £600 more than they owed. Over-payments are made due to the way information is shared about loan repayments. Traditionally, the Student Loan Company has received repayment information once a year, at the end of the tax year in April. This means that if a graduate repaid their loans during the tax year, for example in November, they will have been making over-payments for the rest of that tax year.

An end to Predicted Grades?

Labour has said that it would scrap university places being offered on the basis of predicted grades and bring in a system of applying after results, calling the current system "deeply unfair". Research by the Department for Business Innovation and Skills in 2011 found that 51.7% of predictions were accurate, with 41.7% being over-predicted and 6.6% under-predicted. Black applicants had the lowest percentage accuracy with only 39.1% of grades accurately predicted, while white applicants had the highest-grade prediction accuracy at 53%.

Record numbers apply to university

Record numbers of English 18 year olds have applied to university. UCAS figures show that 236,350 school leavers, 40% in total, had applied by the end of June, 3,970 more than in 2018. However, the number of 18 year olds in Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland applying for degrees has fallen. Across the UK as a whole, 275,520 young people applied to university this year, up from 272,910 in 2018, but down from 278,130 in 2017. There were record numbers of black, Asian and mixed-race applicants, while the number of white applicants continues to fall. Surprisingly, the number of applicants, across all age groups, from the EU rose by 540 from 50,120 in 2018 to 50,660 this year. There was also a rise in applicants from outside the EU applying to UK universities to 81,340, an increase of 8%.

Parents pay the price of university

A survey by the consumer group Which? of over 800 parents of current and prospective students found that 2:3 will use their monthly income to cover the costs and over a quarter will dip into their savings. Over a quarter have had to, or are planning to, cut back on spending on home improvements, cars and holidays to support their child at university, while 6% said that they have or will have to take on a second job to cover the costs of their child’s higher education. Overall, 84% of parents of current students said they were financially supporting their child at university and nearly half of those said the overall cost was more than they expected, contributions averaged £360 a month.

All change at Informed Choices

The Russell Group of universities has decided to change its very widely used Informed Choices guidance from a booklet published annually to a website.  The aim of this is to broaden the advice they provide for application to their universities and to prevent potential applicants from narrowing their curriculum choices. You can visit the new site here.

Over-educated employees

The Office of National Statistics has said that 31% of graduates are over educated for the job they are doing. For those graduating before 1992, the number was 22%, but this jumps to 34% for those graduating after 2007. London had the highest proportion of over educated workers, with about 25% overqualified for their job. Graduates in the Arts and Humanities were more likely to be under-using their education.

Post graduate salaries

You can use two websites (linked on the left hand side of this page) to find out potential post-graduate salaries for specific courses at particular institutions:

WHICH? University

• Use the Find a Course function – search by course and university
• Click on course information for one of the courses that comes up
• Click on – 'After graduation'
• First you can see the Destination of Leavers from Higher Education salary data, 6 months after graduation.
• Then scroll down to see mean salaries 1,3 and 5 years after graduation which comes from the Longitudinal Education Outcomes data-set. Only the mean is included, lower and upper quartiles aren’t.

Unistats:

• Search for course by subject and university
• Click on the relevant course that you are interested in
• Click on 'Employment and accreditation'.

Analysis of the benefits of a Degree

Analysis of data from 2015-16 has revealed some startling facts about the cost-benefits of going to university:

• 18-25% of undergraduates were studying for degrees which fail to deliver a lifetime-earnings premium that justifies the average student debt, from tuition fees and maintenance loans, of £50,000.
• 40% of undergraduates were enrolled in courses that led to median earnings below the student-loan repayment threshold of £25,000, after five years.
• 10% were enrolled in courses with median earnings below £25,000 ten years after graduation - representing 134,000 students every year who won't be paying back anything ten years after graduating yet who will have accumulated significant interest.
• 20% would be no better off five years after graduating than if they had chosen to take a non-university route, such as an Apprenticeship.

It could be argued that higher education and the "university experience" are a reward in themselves, beyond income, but ...