Unfair changes to student loans and concerns about job prospects must be weighed against the life-changing potential of education
Is going to university financially worthwhile? New research on graduate incomes is unlikely to help the beleaguered sector’s reputation. Even though most benefit from an earnings premium, worth around £100,000 on average over a lifetime (after tax and student loan repayments), the finding that one in four people end up worse off proves that there are no guarantees. The premium has shrunk by around 30% compared with forecasts from six years ago.
The study from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) could be viewed as a vindication of the latest British Social Attitudes survey. It found that the proportion of people who think a degree is not worth the time and money has risen from 14% to 34% in 20 years. While the research predated Rachel Reeves’s most recent, unfair worsening of the terms on which graduates repay loans, it arguably reflected reduced confidence in the government’s commitment to protect the graduate earnings premium, as well as anxiety about salary prospects and the economy more broadly.
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