Insider
Education
To Uni or not to Uni
Decisions come thick and fast when you are seventeen. Per-
haps the biggest decision you are faced with concerns whether
or not to go to university. It isn't a straight forward decision—
far from it when you need to consider the location of the uni-
versity, the preferred course and the cost. So, is university re-
ally worth it? Olivia Larkin
When university
education was
solely for the
privileged few it
acted as a
launch pad into
a career. There
was a sense that
this was an au-
tomatic progres-
sion, but times
have changed
and there is far
greater competi-
tion in the job
market with far
more graduates.
Having a degree
reduces your
chances of being
unemployed but
it isn't a guaran-
tee of a job ei-
ther.
In 2017-18 aca-
demic year,
there were 2.3
million students
in higher educa-
tion, which
equates to 3% of
the UK’s popula-
tion. As great as
this number
sounds the number
of students in
higher education
actually peaked
around 2008/2009
at 2.5 million. The
Higher Education
Policy Institute
predicts that num-
bers of students
attending universi-
ty will continue to
rise until 2030 ac-
“This
year
275,520
young
people
applied
to uni-
versity
through
UCAS”
cording to The
Guardian. This
year 275.520
young people
applied to uni-
versity through
UCAS—they be-
lieve another
300,000 places
will be needed
by 2030 to
meet demand.
All of this de-
spite the finan-
The College magazine online: sixthformmag.blogspot.co.uk