Earn While You Learn
Hundreds of thousands of students have opened envelopes that gave them their A-Level results and will set their future path. With a record 275,520 young people having applied to university courses starting this year, many will be looking at going into higher education this autumn
With the new-found freedom of being at university also comes the responsibility of budgeting and looking after finances. Young people face a dilemma of incurring debts of up to £50,000 in some cases and repaying student loans well into their 30s, plus achieving a degree that doesn’t necessarily get them the job they want.
A recent poll conducted by Ipsos MORI for the Sutton Trust identifies that only two thirds of young people rate a university education as important. Sixty-five per cent of young people up to the age of 16 said they thought it was important to go to university, continuing a downward trend seen since 2013, when 86 per cent said a university education was important. A year ago, the figure was 75 per cent.
So, what has changed? The poll found that nearly two-thirds of respondents were interested in doing an apprenticeship rather than going to university.
This is down to the growing awareness of apprenticeships as well as the range of apprenticeship positions available to them, along with other high-quality training routes. Traditionally apprenticeships were known for jobs in trades such as plasterers, plumbers and hairdressers, but today pretty much every industry from policing to engineering, the health service to the security service has the option to do apprenticeships in topics as diverse as social and digital marketing, police constable degree, IT support, finance and accounting and customer service. The appeal of earning while you are learning is growing in popularity.
The main thing before deciding on which option to take is to get a good initial grounding in education particularly in maths and English which are essential for most roles within the workplace. Having a strong grounding in these subjects is vital for young people in today’s job market and good qualifications open the door to a wider variety of careers than would be possible without them.
