A Degree of Truth?

I was listening to a London radio talk show on Friday; they were discussing Universities and more precisely degrees as there is new figures out which shows a drop in the number of new Students applying for University places.
Basically, the debate was about “soft” degrees such as “ologies”, media, travel and leisure etc., being a waste of time and too many Graduates are unable to use them because there are more Graduates than positions! The question I asked myself was: are they and why is that?
Since Tony Blaire’s Labour came to power, the Government has been encouraging students to continue their education to Degree level. More and more Universities (formerly Colleges) have been established in an effort to accommodate the thousands of new age Students who have bought into this.
Think out loud (TOL) - Then the Government change the rules on Student loans and now Graduates are faced with overdrafts of thousands of pounds! Believe me, with two Graduates in my family, I know! Sorry just wanted to throw that one in!
Why did the Government want this (not the loans, but the sudden urge to encourage)? Well IMO, we have to go back to the 70’s and 80’s when successive Labour and Conservative Governments began stripping the UK of its then traditional manufacturing industries. No, this is not kick the Government; they also had to look at the economic situation at the time.
They realised other countries in the emerging World were suddenly able to manufacture cheaper, due to cheaper costs of labour, raw materials and health and safety. Additionally, factories and plants could be built without planning permissions et cetera and at a fraction of the cost of those in the UK. The consequence was that products once manufactured here, could be imported and sold in our shops cheaper than before and I’m afraid to say, consistently as opposed to stoppages in the supply line with products manufactured over here, due to frequent strike action.
TOL – Not knocking Unions, there were many reasons for this and I don’t have the full data or blog space to go into it. Anyway, back to the opinion!
The shape of labour was changing! Out goes major manufacturing and in comes servicing, retail and commerce! Therefore, the once globally revered apprenticeships would become a casualty. The Government had to act, with labour changing, new training was needed. Organisations were looking for individuals with different skills to recruit.
At the same time there was a social revolution. No longer did people work next door to their place of work. As communications improved with new Motorways, people began to commute.
During these decades and into the 90’s, a couple of other key social events occurred; redundancies and the housing boom (Mrs T, everyone has the right to own their own home – or words to that effect)
These events would also prove to have a prolific effect on the labour force. Firstly, the once safe job was no longer safe. With a safe job came loyalty! But once the security was tested the loyalty swayed. The second event meant that new home owners had new responsibilities and new aspirations to rise up the property ladder resulting in a need to earn more and more (particularly when interest rates increased during economic crises as they continue to do today)!

The consequence of these events meant the labour force became more nomadic and less loyal. Now I am only talking about the masses, there still remains many loyal employees as well as employers and good on them! And here is my conclusion (thank goodness for that I here you scream).
Employers realised comprehensive training was very expensive particularly as they would invest hundreds (or thousands) of pounds training someone only for them to leave for a better paid position. Having come to this conclusion, many Organisations took the decision to employ higher educated people who had the ability to train themselves, or at least only require minimal training at fraction of the cost. As the competition for first time placements increased (for the better paid jobs) so did the level of education expected. Hence the need for the Government to act!
Unfortunately, due to the fact there are so many Graduates competing for placements and so many with massive debts, the desire of today’s Students to compete under these conditions is waning, hence the numbers dropping!
The issue of ologies etc; well in my opinion there are placements that would happily accept ologies etc., and don’t forget the higher the education level attained the more options one has!Okay it’s my opinion but I would welcome any feedback, but please keep it clean!