“Education, Education, Education”- the messianic Tony Blair proclaimed that, under him, 50% of young people would attend university. It was to be an economic and moral triumph! A booming economy full of highly skilled, highly educated people ready to make Britain a global hub of talent.
But the catch is this; whilst liberals sat back in their leather armchairs, feeling very pleased with themselves, the reality was that the most damaging social experiment in modern times was unfolding.
An enforced debt trap
Students now leave with £40,000–£60,000 in student loans, before they even secure their first jobs (and that’s a story for a different day).
What was labelled as an opportunity for the working class became a gravy train for institutions of higher learning, with tuition fees jumping from around £3,000 to a whopping £9,000.
For the record, you are accruing interest almost immediately upon graduation but you will not start paying it down until you earn over a certain threshold. Indeed, the majority will never pay it off.
A tax by any other name…
In practice, this means that whilst people are paying income tax, road tax, NI, council tax… The list goes on. They are also paying a lifelong graduate tax. A punishment for the working class, how dare they attempt to work themselves into better circumstances.
“But waaait!”, I hear you screech, “aren’t loans eventually written off?!” Yes but by golly, aren’t you paying through the nose for it- taking a 9% hit every month for your entire working life.
When everyone is special, no-one is.
We might hope and pray that the sorry tale ends there. Alas, it is also the case that when half the population holds a degree, it ceases to be a marker of distinction.
Degrees are now the bare minimum. Employers demand them for roles that never needed them before, unwilling to train employees like they used to. Graduates find themselves in a catch 22, they are “overqualified” for roles that do not “need” a degree but underexperienced for ones that do.
Which brings us to today: Credential inflation, stagnant wages, and endless frustration.
As a wise woman once said, ‘“that’s a real f***n’ legacy, to leave”.
Carla Beaton
This article is from Carla’s substack: