Higher education finally attracted Tony Blair’s target of 50% of young people this year. But in the process, it has gained a set of interlinked problems. For one thing, it is turning out more graduates than we need: according to the ONS, only 57% of graduates are in high-skilled jobs (and this figure is declining). For another, it doesn’t adequately prepare young people for the working world: in 2017, a poll found that 75% employers considered recent graduates ‘unfit’ for employment.
On top of that, the soaring cost of tuition places a disproportionate debt burden on poorer students, who are less likely to have help with living expenses from family; they graduate £57,000 in debt, compared with the £42,000 debt of their better-off peers.
We need a new approach. One that will reduce the total number of graduates to better fit the UK’s employment requirements, while levelling the economic playing field between rich and poor and improving the quality, attitude and employability of new graduates.
My radical policy would make university degrees fully government-funded, including living expenses, but make them contingent — for the entire UK student body — on prior successful completion of two years’ public service, either in the military or (for conscientious objectors) the NHS.
To make it work, we would need to widen the definition of military service beyond the frontline. After basic training, young people might drive minibuses on unprofitable public transport routes in rural locations, help fill in potholes, or provide Meals on Wheels to the elderly. It would be important to provide accommodation — as much for esprit de corps as to act as a social leveller — as well as food and a small stipend. There should be no impediment to public service on grounds of economic background.
For egalitarian reasons, it would be essential to ensure service tasks were assigned rather than chosen, as a precaution against the sharp-elbowed middle classes pulling strings to ensure their offspring received a cushy posting. And the scheme would need to offer roles compatible with mobility issues or other access requirements, for young people with disabilities.
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