The government thinks education can be bought and sold like a vacuum cleaner – how spectacularly stupid can you get?
University workers and students on strike
Photograph: Joe Giddens/PA
There ain’t half been some clever bastards, as Ian Dury once said. It is a pity none of them are involved in running our universities. Those who do appear unable to evaluate evidence, understand data or do comparative analysis. They lack in basic skills. What else could explain this “idea” that universities be ranked on the earnings of their graduates? Obviously, graduates’ earnings do not depend just on where they did their degree, but on several factors. D’oh! Do I need to spell this out? Earnings vary according to subject and career choice. Some jobs may never produce high incomes, but they enrich society, whether this be in nursing or the arts. Wages in all sectors vary according to location, with people in the south-east earning more.
The prime factor that determines the lot of graduates remains the wealth of the student’s family. Research from the Institute for Fiscal Studies in 2016 showed that the top 10% of highest-earning men from rich backgrounds earned 20% more than the top 10% of highest-earning men from poorer ones. Social mobility had already stalled before the introduction of tuition fees, but the monetisation of this whole sector means it is but a pipe dream.
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