by David Craig
The types of non–university vocational qualifications, which would support careers in these growth areas, do exist. But they have been demoted in the race to get an ever–increasing number of students to university. The de facto message of expansion to young people and their parents has been that non–university vocational qualifications are the second–class, or even third–class, citizens of the qualifications world. The most compelling evidence of the influence that this attitude has exerted can be found in surveys of new mothers of whom a staggering 97% now want their babies to attend university.291
The scale of the graduate oversupply problem becomes clear when we consider the numbers of graduates now working in non–graduate positions, as the Guardian noted in 2016: “Over one in 10 childminders (11.5%, according to the 2014 Labour Force Survey) are graduates. One in six call–centre staff have degrees, as do about one in four of all air cabin crew and theme–park attendants.” 292
One newspaper reader, responsible for recruitment at a call centre, remarked: “I’m increasingly interviewing graduates with useless degrees”. What is also clear is that, despite experts raising concerns about this for over a decade, their warnings have been roundly ignored by universities and successive governments in their rush to expand the UK’s Higher Education sector. For example, back in 2004 labour market academics Professor Keep and Dr Mayhew criticised the 50% target for Higher Education participation as unnecessary and unhelpful, arguing that it:
“... has major implications for the economy, where there remain a substantial number of jobs with vocational requirements below degree level, not least in craft and technical occupations. It is doubtful whether graduate courses (honours or foundation) are an effective or efficient means of meeting such demand.”293
The problem of an oversupply of graduates at the regional level was raised in 2002 by the think tank Local Futures. In an analysis of the skills profiles of the nine English regions, they found that:
“…the number of high–skilled jobs is failing to keep pace with rising qualifications. Between 1994 and 2000, a period of healthier economic growth, the proportion of workers in the capital who had a degree or equivalent rose by over 22%. The number of jobs in the most graduate–intensive industries rose at little more than a fifth of that rate. The mismatch is repeated around the country…. the graduate labour pool grew by 23% between 94–00, while knowledge–intensive industries raised their share of national employment from 48% to 50%, an increase of less than 5%.”294
In the same year, the Institute of Directors was equally critical of the impact of expansion on the provision of a skilled workforce for employers: “The current obsession with sending as many young people as possible into Higher Education undermines vocational training by making it appear a second best. This helps no one, least of all the many students who study inappropriate Higher Education courses.”295
In short, despite the fact that improving the quality of the UK’s workforce has supposedly been the raison d’être for expansion, in practice both the aims and implementation of the policy have drawn sharp criticism from a broad coalition of its intended beneficiaries. They have attacked the policy for creating an oversupply of graduates, for trivialising non–university vocational training and, finally and most consistently, for expanding UK Higher Education in a variety of poorly–chosen subject areas. Rather than these criticisms being addressed, they have instead been repeatedly ignored by policy makers and universities bent on a policy of expansion at any cost.
Degree choices and the job market
Leaving aside the swathes of students studying degree subjects for which there is absolutely no employer demand, universities have knowingly created a grossly disproportionate number of places on vocational degree subjects such as law and psychology. Successive governments have ignored this academic mendacity as part of a complicit agreement to drive expansion with little or no regard to the long–term consequences for students. This pattern has been repeated in numerous subjects: for example, the supply of forensic science, physiotherapy and social work graduates all massively outstrip the demands of employers in these areas.
Law graduates
In 2012, there were around 54,000 full–time undergraduates studying law at UK universities, providing about 17,000 law graduates a year. The annual number of training contracts available in 2011 for trainee solicitors was a mere 5,441. By 2015 this had increased to 5,457, an additional 16 places. In 2011 there were 22,915 entrants to law degrees, by 2015 this figure had risen to 25,755 an additional 2,840 students
The scale of this problem is clear in Figure 1:
Figure 1 - The oversupply of law students 1996-2011
Whilst some of these graduates might secure other jobs working in the legal sector (paralegals, legal secretaries), many won’t even get that opportunity. In fact, there are so many undergraduates studying law, that law students are almost more likely to end up as baristas than barristers. As for being ‘called to the bar’, the bar many of these law students will be called to won’t require any great legal knowledge. An in–depth knowledge of cocktails would probably be more useful.
The professional bodies for solicitors and barristers, the Law Society and the Bar Council, are quite explicit on their websites about exactly how difficult it is to obtain a training position in either role. As one law graduate, now working in a call centre for a medical claims company, said “unless you know someone who knows someone, you haven’t a chance”. Similarly explicit advice about the scarcity of legal positions for graduates is noticeably absent from the web pages of university law departments eager to attract new student fee fodder nor is it mentioned in sundry university comparison websites.
Forensic science degrees
In 2011, the government Forensic Science Service (FSS), which employs the vast majority of the UK’s forensic scientists, was listed for closure by the government. Even before this announcement, it was clear that there was a massive gap between the supply of and demand by employers for “CSI” degrees. In 2011, the Guardian noted that the FSS: “...employed 1,600 people, not all of them scientists, while LGC Forensics, Britain’s largest private provider, employs 500 people. But with more than 8,500 forensics students in the UK, it’s little surprise that the FSS website warns applicants that its advertised jobs see responses from 1,000 applicants.”296
Universities were quite aware of this. But they continued increasing the number of CSI–related courses. The most important thing for them was recruiting enough students to continue to run their degree courses. Considerations about what subjects were actually needed by the UK economy and what degrees would be most useful to graduates didn’t seem to factor in to their decisions about these universities’ degree portfolios. If a subject was popular, they either set up a course in that area or expanded their existing courses to bursting point. The government, the key employer for many of these graduates, did nothing to stop this folly… because it was assisting expansion.
Physiotherapy
The same practice has been evident in physiotherapy, where a massive oversupply eventually led to huge numbers of unemployed graduates. By 2006, the Chartered Society of Physiotherapists stated that the situation was so serious that: “…the latest job figures for England showed that 93% of this year’s 2,529 physiotherapy graduates did not have an NHS job to go to.”297 This was despite the fact that: “The society said graduates devoted more than 1,000 hours of free service to the NHS, and their training cost the public purse around £2m each year.”298
You may remember that these were the same physiotherapy degrees that had proved so popular that a number of universities had resorted to using lottery software to pick applicants during the admissions process.
Social work
In 2011, a British Association of Social Workers’ representative posted on the Centre for Workforce Intelligence website, asking for advice on how to support graduates in social work who
couldn’t find work:
“The British Association of Social Workers has been contacted by lots of newly qualified social workers (NQSWs) who are really struggling to find work. The situation has been caused by a number of factors, including a doubling of the number of social work students in the last 7 years. If anyone has any ideas of how to help the NQSWs who are not finding work, or information from other professions as to how they are dealing with similar situations it would be greatly appreciated. To quote an unemployed newly qualified social worker ‘I have applied for 30 social work posts in children and families local authority work and every time have been told that I was not appointed because I had not completed the first year of newly qualified social work’.”299
To provide an idea of the scale of the problem of oversupply, in 2010/2011 the government funded 78,540 new students on undergraduate courses in psychology, law and social work when there were only around 15,700 training places (Figure 2).300
Subject
Starters
Psychology
27,115
Social work
24,610
Law
26,815
Total
78,540
Training positions available
15,700
Projected oversupply of law, social work and psychology graduates
62,840
Figure 2 - New students in vocational subjects for 2010/2011301
After graduation less than 20% of these graduates would have found a position to train as a lawyer, social worker or psychologist. This situation was problematic in 2010/11. Today, with average graduate debts approaching £60,000, it is beyond shocking that the government and the Student Loans Company continue funding these numbers of students and that our universities continue providing places for them. But, then again, these student numbers continue to support expansion and the students willingly apply for these degrees in the probably mistaken expectation of a professional career.
Even worse, despite knowing about the existing oversupply of law and psychology graduates, many universities still also offer postgraduate conversion courses in these subjects, allowing graduates in different subjects to apply to professional training courses for these areas. These courses are expensive and time–consuming and generally provide most students with little opportunity to actually gain employment in these already massively oversubscribed areas. They do, however, provide useful revenue for universities and employment for academics.
There are around 1,500 students undertaking psychology conversion courses in the UK annually and a typical course might cost around £5,000.302 In 2011/12, UK universities and colleges provided places for a further 5,301 students on law conversion courses at fees ranging from £6,000–£13,000.303 These courses are full–time and therefore necessitate a further year of economic inactivity and a further £20,000 or so of debt. That these conversion courses are unlikely to enable most of their students to gain access to these professions is of little significance to universities chasing a lucrative revenue stream. Those running these courses are perfectly aware of this. But they carry on recruiting students – course fee fodder – regardless.
Interestingly, the USA has experienced a similar problem with universities producing a massive oversupply of law graduates to an already saturated and disinterested job market. Disgruntled law graduates have reacted by suing their law schools for “misleading information in their prospectuses” which has saddled them with huge debt and no means of repayment.304 It isn’t difficult to foresee this scenario occurring at some point in the UK in the next few years. If this happens, many university faculties may find themselves with a difficult case to argue.
It would not be impossible to limit places for students on those courses where the government is the key or indeed only employer. There is already an example of this in the recruitment and training of doctors, where the number of places at UK medical schools is capped and limited in agreement between Higher Education Funding Council for England, the Department of Health and the NHS. If this approach works for doctors, then why not apply it to social workers, forensic scientists or psychologists? Similarly, if professional bodies such as Law Society and the Bar Council are absolutely clear about how many new graduates their professions can take each year, it should not be beyond the capabilities of the universities and the Student Loans Company to limit student numbers to something approaching the level of demand in the jobs market. But, of course, this isn’t done as it would interfere with the, mostly university–educated, elites’ favoured policy of ever more university expansion.
Vocational degrees
Even when universities do develop “vocational” degrees, they often fail to provide graduates with the skills necessary to work in the relevant industries. Forensic science and games programming degrees both provide clear illustrations of this issue.
Following the popularity of television shows such as CSI, the last decade has seen a dramatic increase in interest from students wanting to become crime scene specialists. There was already an established route into this profession and a static number of potential places for graduates each year through government recruiters. Many universities chose to ignore these basic facts and set up their own CSI–badged degrees to attract applicants. Unfortunately, these degrees were often rushed, badly designed and provided no benefit to students wishing to work in these fields. In 2005, a House of Commons Select Committee investigating the value of these degrees stated that:
“We heard extensive evidence that a large proportion of the forensic science courses on offer provide poor preparation for a career in forensic science. Clive Wolfendale, Deputy Chief Constable of North Wales Police, called the majority of forensic science degree courses ‘a savage waste of young people’s time and parents’ money’. He also told us that in a recent selection process they had 50 applicants for three crime scene examiner jobs.”305
Universities knew this. But they continued increasing the number of CSI–related courses. The only relevant concern for them was cynically recruiting enough students to run their courses.
In 2008, the professional body of games programmers condemned 95% of UK undergraduate degrees in this area as unfit for purpose and unlikely to provide a graduate with a job in the industry:
“Leading figures in the video games industry are unhappy with the 95% of degree courses at UK universities that are unaccredited and fail to equip graduates with the necessary skills to build a career in the industry. Of the 81 universities in the UK offering video gaming–related degrees, only four are accredited.”306
In 2007, Orla Byrne, vice–president of HR for gaming company Activision, stated that what the industry needed was a greater supply of STEM graduates rather than graduates with variable quality degrees in gaming, noting that a: “…student with a very strong physics or maths degree will make a strong, if not better, contribution than someone (with) a pure gaming degree.”307
In other words, yet another group of employers was asking universities to increase their output of STEM graduates instead of developing poorly–designed degrees that might sound fashionable and interesting to students, but which offered little in the way of employable skills. Perhaps this is starting to sound familiar?
Graduate skills
Research during expansion has consistently shown that employers are also worried about graduates leaving universities with limited skills. One example of this is elite UK graduates failing to secure the best international jobs due to a lack of language skills. In 2011, a policy meeting at the House of Commons heard that UK graduates were unable to compete for top places in multinational organisations and com
panies for whom a second language was a prerequisite. The most obvious example of this was a failure in applications to the European Union, where only 1.5% of the 51,000 applicants for jobs in 2011 were British, with only seven successful applicants.308
In a number of interviews undertaken for this book, several graduates mentioned how they were told that they would need to pay the full price for any language tuition that fell beyond their undergraduate degree. As result of this, they could not afford to develop or improve their languages from their existing standard. Prior to expansion, these same language courses were provided either free or at a minimal cost. Despite the fact that today’s graduates are expected to pay far more for their actual degrees, the degree–factory university offers fewer of the additional extras which would enable graduates to compete more effectively in both the domestic and international job markets.
Additionally, employers are concerned about UK graduates lacking basic skills in literacy and numeracy. Research published by the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development in 2010 asked businesses to comment on how they thought graduates’ literacy and numeracy had changed in the previous five years: “Only 6 per cent of employers believe that these skills have improved, whilst 42 per cent and 35 per cent respectively feel that literacy and numeracy have worsened amongst graduates.”309
These findings were supported by the CBI Education and Skills Survey in 2010, which questioned over 600 senior managers in UK companies. This found that the number of companies investing in remedial literacy and numeracy courses for employees had risen from 15% to 18%. Half of the companies contacted lacked confidence that they would be able to recruit to their graduate–level positions in the medium term.310 Since 2000, there have been multiple pieces of research highlighting that UK employers are seriously concerned that they cannot find enough graduate recruits of a sufficient quality to meet their recruitment needs.