This weekend my daughter will arrive home from university for the summer recess, and a long, long, long vacation (did I mention how long it is?). Most universities in Britain, it seems, have dispensed with the third term of education, and most students complete any constructive learning shortly after Easter, allowing them a full five months to while away. Given the crisis in student housing, however, she has already paid for accommodation for the next year. As her chief benefactor on this educational journey, I will now be paying rent on an empty flat throughout the holidays. It’s an inexplicably draining situation, financially and spiritually.

Meantime, she joins the great mass of students now looking at part-time work. And weeks of loafing around the house. I find this seasonal transition one of the most challenging: on the one hand I love having my darling progeny about me. On the other, I can’t stand living in what will become her student digs.

Thinking back to my own experience of being a student, I’m surprised at how little has really changed. Technological tools, such as emails, laptops and AI, have fundamentally altered the business of study: but the grungy, analogue lifestyle still remains. The student routine is still metered out in similar parcels, dirty washing, time spent flirting in the library and how long one can sustain a pouch of nicotine. Every half-decent-looking boy thinks he’s a DJ. Art students are still considered cool. Household decor involves draping, stinky blankets and illegal Blu Tack. And everyone walks about 10 miles a day.

For those fortunate enough to be able to fund higher education, the student experience still offers a kind sanctuary from grown-up life. And yet increasingly, shared housing, black mould and carbon monoxide poisoning is losing its romance. A new British Social Attitudes survey found that a third of people in England consider university education a waste of time. According to a report in the FT, it marks the first time since 2005 that “negative sentiment towards a university education has outweighed the share of people who believe it still has value” (double the number of those last asked in 2018). And that “confidence in the financial returns from university” has reached “a record low of 36 per cent”.

The number of people enrolling in higher education is still hitting historic highs. Nearly 40 per cent of the UK’s 18-year-olds head into higher education, and Unesco’s first Higher Education Global Trends Report shows that the number of students enrolled worldwide has more than doubled during the past two decades, reaching 269mn in 2024.

With AI haunting our future prospects, and the employment market becoming increasingly distressed, students graduating from college at the moment are joining a Hunger Games-style market in which the scant few jobs on offer are going to the very best.

Does the degree hold any value? Sadly, it depends on where you go. A cursory glance through the successful pool of applicants to most junior jobs in most institutions will still reveal a bias towards those who went to the schools within the Russell Group or Ivy League. As university degrees become more widespread, estimations of their worth have diverged. Does an Oxbridge degree hold any value? It will certainly help if you want to work within my team.

At best, university forestalls the inevitable horror of having to enter the workplace. It’s a chance to flex some independent muscles and develop a personality that isn’t a clone of ma and pa. University is less about one’s field of study (unless you want to end up in academia) but learning how to navigate human behaviour, take initiatives and maybe finesse some basic meals. That said, the cost is increasingly prohibitive, especially when factoring in things such as empty-flat summer rent. And it’s hard to make the case for university as a place for personal development if it’s only serving to function as a jumped-up finishing school.

A degree’s value has always been contestable. I’ve worked with both Oxbridge scholars and school-of-hard-knocks graduates, and neither education made for a better boss. I left university with a reasonable history degree and zero career plans, and spent the next four years trying to find my feet. I had no ins nor useful connections, so I just plodded through different employments until, miraculously, I got a few shifts as a night sub-editor on a local paper and learnt how to be a journalist on the job. (Ironically, the history degree has proven hugely valuable in a business that is all about first-hand reporting, detecting narrative bias and the second source.) Everyone is so focused on the next step. Everyone thinks they need a master plan. I would advise students not to try to land their dream job straight out of college. Enjoy some “fuck-around time” while you figure out what happens next.

AI is “coming for our jobs” now: the next decade will see a seismic shift. That doesn’t make higher education worthless, but it will mean there’ll be a need to recalibrate. Perhaps our dependence on machine learning and LLMs will send students off on different paths. The future is all about the hands now; cheffing, hair styling and floristry. Maybe the future is in mime artistry — there’s a higher education course for clowning, right?

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