Quote: The Video Ref "I know masses of people who have left university with degrees such as 'business studies'.
Many of them are working in run-of-the mill jobs that do not require anything more than a sensible school leaver. They receive no extra financial reward for their degree, nor does their degree have any tangible impact on their job.
I don't see how we, as a society, benefit from these people having degrees. Does it mean they are likely to make more intelligent conversation in the pub or something?
Unless you do something super specialised (medicine, law etc...) or elite (PPE at Oxford) the chances are your first degree will be irrelevant after 5 years.'"
It may not fit the popular misconception you are propagating here but a degree education says something about a persons ability academically and otherwise other than just that they received a higher education in a certain subject.
It's always been like that and this is why companies large enough to have a general graduate recruitment program recruit graduates with degrees in many different subjects. The idea they would be better off recruiting a 16 year old and giving them five years training is another popular myth. If it were that simple then that is what they would do but they don't. A reason they don't is they have no idea if that 16 year old will be worth the effort five years down the line whereas by recruiting graduates they know what they have had to do to get their degree. Such companies are not stupid and you don't get a place on their schemes just because you have a degree but it is degree qualified people they are after.