\n<\/p>\n
The UK now has a \u201csurfeit\u201d of graduates and students must accept that a university degree is no longer a \u201cpassport to social mobility\u201d, a leading vice-chancellor has argued.<\/p>\n
Prof Shitij Kapur, the head of King\u2019s College London, said the days when universities could promise that their graduates were certain to get good jobs are over, in an era where nearly half the population enters higher education.<\/p>\n
Kapur said a university degree is now more like a \u201cvisa\u201d than a guaranteed route to professional success, a reflection of the shrinking graduate pay premium and the increased competition from AI and other graduates from around the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe competition for graduate jobs is not just all because of AI filling out forms or taking away jobs. It\u2019s also because of the stalling of our economy and it\u2019s also because of a surfeit of graduates. So I feel that that simple promise [of a good job] has now become conditional on \u2018Which university did you go to? What course did you take?\u2019\u201d Kapur said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe personal equation of the university as a vehicle for social mobility, almost as a passport to social mobility, meant that if you got a degree, you were certain to get a job as a socially mobile citizen. But now I think it has become a visa for social mobility \u2013 it means you\u2019ve got a chance to go and visit that place called social mobility. Maybe you\u2019ll make it there, maybe you won\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
While arguments have raged for decades over the value of a university degree, in 2025 Keir Starmer declared that aiming for 50% of young people to enter higher education was \u201cnot right for our times\u201d, ending Tony Blair\u2019s pledge made in 1999. Starmer\u2019s declaration came two years after Rishi Sunak as prime minister had claimed: \u201cThe false dream of 50% of children going to university \u2026 was one of the great mistakes of the last 30 years.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Kapur said experts such as the sociologist Martin Trow have long predicted that large-scale entry into higher education would change the status of university degrees, as the sector moved from educating an elite of just 5% to 10% of young people to a more universal system attracting young people from all parts of society.<\/p>\n
Kapur said Trow predicted: \u201cThree things will happen. Social regard for the exceptionalism of university graduates will go down. The second thing is, the graduate premium will go down, because a degree will become something that\u2019s not scarce at all. And from being a privilege, it [a university education] will start becoming a necessity\u201d for participating in advanced society.<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cI think in the UK we are reaching that point now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Figures from the Department for Education show that England\u2019s graduates still enjoy higher rates of employment and pay than non-graduates, although the real earnings of younger graduates have been stagnant for the past decade. Kapur points out that the national economy\u2019s slow growth coincided with England\u2019s introduction of \u00a39,000 tuition fees and student loans in 2012, making it \u201cthe worst possible time\u201d to transition to individual student loans.<\/p>\n
In 2022, Kapur wrote a gloomy discussion of UK higher education that described a \u201ctriangle of sadness\u201d between students burdened with debt and pessimistic prospects, a government that used inflation to cut tuition fees, and overstretched university staff trapped in between.<\/p>\n
Three years later, Kapur says the situation has worsened, with the government \u201cfossilising\u201d domestic tuition fees at a level that does not cover undergraduate teaching costs. But he is convinced that UK universities still provide the best education in the world, thanks in part to the premium tuition fees they earn from international students.<\/p>\n
The higher fees allow the likes of King\u2019s College London to subsidise the world-leading research that maintains their high position in international league tables. The high position in turn enables UK universities to charge premium fees \u2013 and benefits domestic students through greater access to researchers and a wider choice of courses.<\/p>\n
But souring attitudes towards immigration have resulted in recent governments restricting international student visas and, most recently, imposing a levy on their fees that could disrupt those benefits.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an interesting national conversation we need to have. Often people think that international students are some sort of self-serving indulgence. But what I would like people to understand is that this is now a feature of our system. It really does bring benefits to our domestic students, in addition to the nation. Therefore, if we\u2019re going to mess with it, we should do it knowingly,\u201d Kapur said.<\/p>\n
But he warned: \u201cGovernments have to be careful, because if there is any hope that this productivity slump we keep talking about is going to change, it is not going to be because we become faster baristas.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will only turn around if we are able to ride the new wave of technology better than others, that we are the makers and not the takers of the next technological revolution, and universities will have a central role in doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The UK now has a \u201csurfeit\u201d of graduates and students must accept that a university degree is no longer a \u201cpassport to social mobility\u201d, a leading vice-chancellor has argued. Prof Shitij Kapur, the head of King\u2019s College London, said the days when universities could promise that their graduates were certain to get good jobs are<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40142,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[16374,2040,333,875,18063,204,678,781,21636],"class_list":{"0":"post-40141","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-degree","9":"tag-kings","10":"tag-longer","11":"tag-mobility","12":"tag-passport","13":"tag-social","14":"tag-students","15":"tag-university","16":"tag-vicechancellor"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/40142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}