Universities degrees, it's no longer about learning.

I'm a great believer in having a well educated population, an education system that allows anyone from any background to reach their full potential. Yet when a university degree is costing a minimum £50,000 many students from poorer backgrounds are priced out of going to university.

I read an article today on how a university degree is now seen as just a stepping stone to the better paying jobs and how a record number of students are cheating the system by buying essays to get degree. Spending a few hundred pounds to get their degree is a drop in the ocean when put against the £50,000 cost of taking it. Education has become just a tool to gain entry into the better paying jobs with most of those jobs demanding a minimum of a 2:1 degree. It seems more and more students are going to university to snag a wage rather than to learn about their chosen subject while larger and larger numbers of students who want to learn are being put off by an eyewatering minimum £50k debt.
Universities have become elitist money making machines offering the requirements needed to land a top paying job, the education and learning side little more than a distraction.

When I went to university it had nothing to do with future job and wage ambitions, hell I studied fine art so no high flying job offers were expected. I went to universirty to learn so I could improve my skills. I came from a pit village recovering from the 1984 miners strike, many of my peers went on to do A' levels and went onto university. Education was our way out of a community that was being destroyed by government policy and we grabbed the chance to learn and reach our educational potential. (Yes some ended up with those high paying jobs.)

Today such a thing would be beyond what we did, the children of coal miners going on to become scientists, teachers and many other professions. As costs keep going up for a university degree you will see ever fewer kids from working class or poor backgrounds attending and the elitist attitude of education will return. you will only get the education you need for your social class and work expecation.

Education isn't about getting a job but about learning, yet the politicians have sold us this lie that it's just about preparing you for a life of work. This is a return of the Victorian attitude that the poor need to stay in their place and not get ideas above their station.