Show Me the Value of my Degree, Please.

Last year, 2008, I graduated with a 2.1 in Media and Cultural Studies from a top 20 UK university. I was part of the last year of students to be paying tuition fees of £1,200, before the rise to just over £3000 for 2006 entry and onwards. Watching the
News this morning, I was surprised to be greeted by the fact that tuition fees are being suggested by universities, to rise to over £5000 in coming years.

Perhaps it is money well spent if you’re guaranteed a quality form of employment within the first 12 months after graduating? Yet having graduated over six months ago with a respectable degree, I still find myself on a continuing quest for employment.

I’m not alone either. Amongst many others, a friend who studied Marketing and Advertising and received a first degree, as well as gaining work experience from a well renowned advertising agency, is also still unemployed.

With the promise of a degree as a stepping stone to our chosen careers, we now only seem to only be employable to those ‘student job’ employers such as bars, supermarkets and call centres. As a result of the constant influx of rejection letters from graduate employers, for unpaid work experience as well as full time employment, I now find myself questioning, where is the value of our degrees?

Obviously, we are in the midst of a recession, but surely the government or our universities should be doing something to help graduates out in times like these, especially with the growing amount of student debt that each of us hold? Should it not be an incentive to universities for them to ensure that recent graduates set an example to their current and prospective students and find decent employment quickly, showing them why they should subject themselves to tremendous amounts of debt to complete a degree, justifying the increase in tuition fees?

So here I am, a fully qualified graduate, on New Deal Job Seekers Allowance, learning how to use a computer in a Job Centre Plus Training Centre. The government are paying for me to be unemployed and to train me for employment, whilst charging interest for the extent of my oh so ‘valuable’ education. Ironic, huh? Cheers.