The Scottish Dilemma

I studied at university in Scotland. As a result I paid a mere £1,700 in tuition per year compared to my English counterparts studying in England who paid £3,000. That said I did study for four years and not three... I got quite a good deal really, though not as good as the Scottish students who paid diddly-squat.

I've already given my opinions on university and what I think of the fee rise, but now I'm going to delve a little deep into the problem with respect to Scotland.

Now from next year students in England studying at Scottish universities will pay, for the first time, the same as their friends studying in England - £9,000 a year. The Scottish students, however, will continue to pay nothing, nada, rien, zero, niente - you get the picture. I have a problem with this. I don't have a problem with the fee rise as I think it encourages people to really think before they commit to going to university, but I do have a problem with English students paying for what Scottish students get for free.

If there's one thing I noticed from studying in Soctland (and I want to stress that it wasn't like this for the majority), some Scottish students think they're owed a free university education. Many of them receive unconditional offers which often means they have obtained poor grades in comparison to their fellow-students south of the border. Many too have come to university solely because it's free and there's not much on offer for Scottish young people straight out of school.

Last year the Scottish government guaranteed funding for 2,300 more postgraduate places, a luxury not afforded to English students. On average Scottish students get better jobs and higher pay and the unemployment rate post-graduation in Scotland is 6.5%, 1% lower than that of English graduates.

There is some evidence of a slight migration - 1.9% more of employed graduates have looked for work outside of Scotland in 2009/10 than in 2008/09, with just 78.6% finding work in their native land. And though three years on a quarter of Scottish graduates are not in full time employment, the number is slightly lower than  those for the UK in general.

What is interesting, is that the statistics for those who decided to go on to further study across the UK rests at 16%; the Scottish equivalent is nearly 20%. So maybe the reason Scottish graduates are getting better job is because they have better opportunities in higher education. If more English students had funding for postgraduate study, they might be able to earn more in a better job: because Scottish students can get funding, they do get funding.

It's not all rosy for Scotland though, but not where you'd expect it to be either. Scottish students have the highest drop-out rate - more than 1% more than in the UK in general; state-educated students are less likely to get into university if they are Scottish; 5% fewer students from poorer backgrounds have access to university places in Scotland than in the UK.

The drop-out rate can maybe be explained by saying that if they're not paying for tuition, there's no obligation to stay. The class issue, however, is more complex. Apparently, poor Scottish students receive less in maintenance grant and loan - up to £1,500 less than their English counterparts - poor you, it's not as if your education is free...

This year more than ever this gap between England and Scotland is going to become more visible. I can't see these statistics changing very much over time, but they don't reflect the personal impact on potential undergraduates in England sacrificing a degree on cost grounds, whilst there might be a person in Scotland who goes, though they don't really want to, because it's free.

There has been a slight change in the number of Scottish students applying to Scottish universities - falling by just over a percent. Compare this to a 5.6% drop in the number of English applications and a 15.1% drop in Northern Irish applications. Interestingly, 6% EU students, who will also pay nothing at Scottish universities, have decided to cash in their lot in the home of the brave and the land of the free (well free for some, anyway).

So what's my conclusion? Firstly, it isn't fair. I know it sounds petty and childish, but it isn't: it's the accident of birth rehashed in a different form. Maybe the reason English graduates aren't doing as well as Scottish graduates is because they haven't had the same opportunities. If I could sit and wait for my dream job I would, but come April I have assured the Student Loans Company I will be employed so that they can start taking their money back. If I have no job by then, I'm very sorry, but the temping agency it is and my dream job goes on a back-burner.

I don't begrudge Scottish students their opportunities, but when they make their decisions based solely on cost and boredom, taking the place of a hard-working English student instead, that makes me cross.
'I got an unconditional offer, so I didn't try in my last term of Highers. I passed, but only just.'
'I worked really hard to get a B and I was one mark off, and I still didn't get into the university I wanted - in Scotland.'

Oh.

Sometimes life isn't fair.

The Graduate

I have pussyfooted around the issue for a long time, but I'm going to get to the bottom of university, graduate schemes and why it's so hard to get a job even with a degree.

Unlike my fellow graduate, Benjamin Braddock, I don't spending my days in a pool and having romantic assignations by night. I would much rather get out in a morning to earn my keep and spend my hard-earned cash on utility bills and other such exciting things.

So firstly, let's expand on my thoughts about this whole university conundrum. I went to a good university, got a good degree, and I've spent the last 5 months desperately trying to get a job. It shouldn't work like that, the trouble is, though, that there are so many graduates clamouring for jobs they don't even appear on potential employers' radar unless they've done something remarkable.

This begs the question - what is the point of getting a degree if it doesn't help you get a job at the end?
Answer: There is no point.

Now I'm not against degrees in general - I did one after all, and they do give immense life skills and opportunities in the process. But it's like the latest fashion, if one person has it, they stand out - if everyone has it, no-one looks at you twice.

I think the real crux of this argument comes down to why a person will do a degree in the first place. If it is for genuine career advancement - as in they do their degree so that they can get a good job at the end of it - then I have no problem. What really bugs me is he amount of people who go to university for the sake of it - for the 'life experience', which is a synonym of 'getting drunk as many nights in a row as possible'. They are the kind of people that give graduates a bad name.

In my mind university should be an academic discipline. If you're not academic then don't go. We should get over the horribly out-dated attitude that university is for everyone and we should manipulate it so that it's all-inclusive. I'll say it plainly - university isn't for everyone. I personally think the old polytechnics should go back to teaching practical and vocational subjects that trained you up for a practical industry and leave the academic subjects to the old guard.

It is for this reason that I am 100% behind the fee hike. If you have to pay £36,000 in tuition alone for your university education then you're going to think twice. The result has so far been interesting. There are 8.7% fewer applications to universities this year than last - that means in 3 years, 8.7% fewer graduates all spilling out into the jobs market.

That is positive.

But still there are people who are keen to keep the public happy, and throw them a bone or two so the opinion polls remain a happy read for the government. It emerged today that some colleges are now going to offer cheaper degree courses. And it was all going so well...

I still maintain that an attitude change is the thing that the UK needs now more than anything. Until we get over the stereotype that university should be available to everyone then we're never going to get over the problem of degrees dumbing-down and graduates coming out with a very expensive piece of paper that won't get them very far in life at all...

118,000

Today I received some good news! 118,000 more people have become unemployed in the UK since November. That's 118,000 more people that can read my blog. Wahoo!

I'm being ironic. Though I'm sure the extra 118,000 people would probably enjoy reading my blog in between the long hours of daytime television...

Anyway, unemployment is now at 2,685 million and though there are jobs currently, there aren't 2,685 million of them.

So what useful advice are we being offered?

The BBC have a number of patronisingly useful pages to help you get on in the unemployment queue:

1. How to Cope with Unemployment

They tell you about negotiating redundancy, how to claim benefits, how to cope with debts, and they also advise you to, um, apply for a job. Helpful indeed.

2. How to Write a Successful CV

Ok, so some people have shocking CVs, most people don't. Again, really helpful BBC.

3. How to Get a Job in...

Retail, Engineering, Manufacturing, Visual Effects, Starting a Business. I don't want to do any of those.

If that is the quality of the information that we are furnished with in order to get employment, it is no surprise that 2,685 million of us are without work. Unfortunately the advice we're given is plain common sense and frankly it's insulting to think that those things haven't already occured to us.

This goes back to the very first thing I said about stereotypes. Young people are not all lazy bums who can't be bothered applying for work. 22.3% of 16-24 year olds are out of work - that's coming up to 1 in 4 and far too high.

In the same way, all unemployed people are not scroungers who have no intention of ever working. It is these people that get the publicity on the news, but the average unemployed person is most likely intelligent, conscientious, and desperate to get a job.

The problem is still supply and demand. So 18,000 people managed to get jobs, but that still isn't high enough. There are a couple of solutions, but none of them will work in the short-term, and one of them is definitely very unpopular.

1. Companies could be a little more optimistic. Investing in a new workforce is risky, but likely to improve business prospects in the long-term. If there were more incentives for this then hopefully it would be the kick up the backside that the economy needed in order to flush the market with lots of lovely jobs.

2. University is, in my opinion, the biggest hindrance to young people getting jobs. The whole university culture in Britain is changing. Higher fees mean that students will have to think twice before committing. Unfortunately students don't seem to have been put off as much as they should really be. You see the problem is that young people do degrees because they haven't got anything better to do.

Germany has a whole load of great apprentice schemes designed to train young people to do skilled labour. The UK doesn't. We instead are teaching people about Lady Gaga and David Beckham: if you can't get into a good university to do your degree, there's no point in doing it at all - all you need is someone with that same degree from a better university and suddenly you've lost out on another job.

I'm going to make a prediction here. If English students decide that they don't want to be students anymore and start getting themselves on apprenticeships and training schemes straight out of school and college then English unemployment will go down. The Scottish and Welsh students still get a massively subsidised education at university, even though English students pay £9,000 a year (fair, isn't it) and so will continue to use university as a way of further procrastinating those big life-changing decisions.

I predict Scottish and Welsh unemployment will keep on rising over the next few years...