unoriginalname38 – the blog of Dave Cole

The acceptability of not going to university

The government's stated intention is for half the population to have experience of higher and further education. The precise definition doesn't matter any more than whether it was originally university or H/FE. The idea is that we have to have a highly-skilled economy to compete against India and China and so lots of people have to go to university.

So far, so good.

I am absolutely sure that no-one would say that the middle class(es) have a divine right to have their offspring go to a university in preference to the offspring of the working class(es). There are some people born to the middle classes who are not really going to benefit from a university degree. That's true of all classes, but there does seem to be an assumption that they should be going to university. Unless there is going to be a huge expansion of universities so that all middle class kids can go and we can still skill up the economy as much as possible by making sure there's room for working class kids to go to university, it's going to have to become acceptable for middle class kids not to go to university, with everything that entails. Just a random thought - in order for non-traditional people to go to university, traditional people have to make room.

xD.

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