Whose children shouldn't go to university? Not mine

The student loan debate is getting louder by the day. Young people are told the system is unfair, unsustainable, a “lifetime tax” and much of that criticism is right. When I was 16, the Student Loans Company came to my school and told us that paying back our student loan would be seamless and painless. “You won’t even notice it,” they said. Comparing it to a monthly mobile phone bill. A decade later, I can tell you that I am definitely noticing it.

Last week I was visiting home for the first time in a while, sitting with my younger brothers Zak in our favourite coffee shop in Manchester, rain against the windows and the low hum of Olivia Dean around us, talking to him about what comes next after college.

I tried to channel the advice of my own mentors: ask questions, don’t prescribe answers. He said university, listing courses and campuses he’d been looking at, before adding, almost apologetically, that his teacher had also mentioned apprenticeships.

I had to physically hold back the urge to say, “You’re going to university!” And it struck me that when people say “too many young people go to university”, they rarely seem to be talking about their own children.

Why?

The university system is not perfect, but it remains one of the most powerful tools for social mobility we have. For many young people, particularly those without family connections or financial backing, it offers time and space to grow into opportunities that might otherwise feel out of reach.

That does not mean the alternatives are weak. Some apprenticeships now lead directly into well-paid careers, often with wages while you train and without the burden of student debt. In many cases they are more closely linked to real jobs than certain degrees. But they are still uneven in quality and availability and they do not yet carry the same cultural or economic weight as a degree. Until they do, university will continue to dominate how success is understood.

I did not get extraordinary GCSEs or A-levels and I was never one of the polished high achievers the system seems designed to reward. I was a late bloomer. University did not reward brilliance in my case. What it gave me was time: time to grow up, build confidence, meet people from different backgrounds and begin to imagine a life beyond the one immediately visible to me. Without that space, my trajectory would likely have looked very different.

As part of Alan Milburn’s review into young people not in education, employment or training, I have been travelling the country listening to 16- to 24-year-olds talk about their futures. I have sat in youth centres and classrooms in communities not unlike the one I grew up in, places that face deep and persistent challenges.

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Many of the young people now classed as NEET had a torrid time at school. They left with little confidence. They described school as humiliating, frustrating, alienating. Some felt invisible because they were not seen as “university material”. Others felt like failures precisely because they did not go.

That is why the phrase “not everyone needs to go to university” needs to be handled with care.

Of course not everyone needs to go. A system that sends half the population into three year degrees while graduate jobs stagnate is clearly under strain and needs reform. The loan model can feel punitive and there are legitimate questions about whether some courses lead to strong employment opportunities.

At the same time, apprenticeships are becoming an increasingly important route for many young people, often offering paid training and a direct link to the workplace. Those pathways matter, particularly for the many young people who will never go to university.

But that raises a deeper question: whose children will take the alternative? When policymakers argue that we need to move beyond a model dominated by university, would they encourage their own children not to go? When commentators say degrees are overvalued, what advice are they giving at their own kitchen tables?

If middle class children continue to flow into universities while working class children are nudged towards “other pathways”, is that really the reform we want?

Britain tells itself a story about social mobility: that talent can rise, that effort is rewarded and that background does not determine destiny. That story may be more fragile than it was 40 years ago, but it is still incredibly important. It gives young people hope in a world where they are increasingly told that the economy is “asset driven”, “rigged” and that “hard work doesn’t lead to wealth”.

Teenagers now scroll past short clips from influencers and economists explaining that we live in an asset-based economy and that work alone will not make you wealthy. Without property, investments or family backing, you are already behind. For young people without a bank of mum and dad, where does that leave them?

University has been one of the few paths that has enabled young working class people to change their lives. The funding model clearly needs reform, the loan system can feel punitive and there are legitimate questions about whether some courses lead to strong employment prospects.

University has become culturally dominant in ways that sometimes crowd out other forms of excellence. Apprenticeships and technical routes can be strong alternatives, many now lead directly into paid work and good careers. For the roughly half of young people who will never go to university, these pathways need to be stronger.

None of this means university should remain the dominant route forever. But if we want a system with genuine choice, the alternatives must offer the same stability, opportunity and dignity. Until that happens, the debate about “too many people going to university” risks missing the point.