Quote: McLaren_Field "Yes, my own eldest daughter for instance, she has a 2.1 law degree and gained a job at a legal administrators office, which in effect is an admin job. Its ok because that's what she wanted, not every law student wants to be Perry Mason but its fair to say that a law degree was not totally necessary for the job, but it was necessary to be considered for the job.
My opinion is formed from a time, not so long ago, when "training schemes" were the only way to recruit new employees and employers actually had to invest some money into training new employees, not always over five years but for those jobs that required a nationally recognised qualification then a five year commitment to the employee was an absolute from the employer.
It worked.
Of course it came off the profit margin, but it worked.'"
Absolutely spot on.
Employers have been advertising jobs – and demanding you be a graduate, even if the job does not require a degree – for some years now. Couple that with the continuing demand of employers that young people should leave school perfectly trained for the workplace (regardless of what the workplace is): I remember, not that long ago, complaints from the CBI (I think) that people left school with no knowledge of customer relations. Well no – that's not what school is for.
Add in to that the moves to increase tertiary education – the same has happened in other countries too (see Ha-Joon Chang) – and you are inevitably going to end up with so-called pointless degrees.