The government needs to recognise the economic returns from investing in A-levels and degree courses, writes UCU general secretary Sally Hunt.
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Sally Hunt is the general secretary of the University and College Union (UCU)
I have always been a firm believer that investing in education reaps many benefits. A better-educated society is a more tolerant one and people with an education are less likely to be involved with crime or be a drain on the country’s benefits system.
A report released today from the Institute for Public Policy and Research (IPPR), commissioned by my union, the University and College Union (UCU), makes a compelling case for education from an economic perspective.
The report – “Further Higher? Tertiary education and growth in the UK’s new economy” – shows that putting an individual through A-levels and university generates a £227,000 net gain for the economy.
For an investment of £5,000 the net return to the exchequer from someone who gains A-Levels is £47,000. A degree is worth an additional £180,000 to the Treasury from just a £19,000 state investment.
Although I would rather not simply see education in crude financial terms, this report makes it clear that we need greater investment in education if we are to stem the haemorrhaging of jobs abroad.
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With 80% of new jobs by 2020 likely to be professional or technical, requiring at least an A-level, the UK must invest now in the next generation or risk losing out in the race for economic growth. Today’s report highlights the folly of reducing public investment in our colleges and universities, especially at a time when youth unemployment is at record levels.
Industry leaders recognise the importance of investing in UK students.
In the report, Nissan vice-president for Europe, Jerry Hardcastle, says:
“In India they are churning out hundreds of thousands of graduates and we are churning out a small number and that will restrict our ability to expand.
“If they’re not available here, the jobs will move to India, Brazil and China.”
Instead of cutting places and making it more expensive to study, ministers need a strategy which harnesses further and higher education and will provide opportunities for the next generation.
The trend towards increased demand for higher qualifications is prevalent across the globe, yet, as the report shows, the UK currently invests just 1.7% of public expenditure on tertiary education, compared to 2.3% in France, 2.8% in Germany, 3.2% in the USA and the OECD average of 3.0%.
The UK will not win a race to the bottom in terms of low wages. We need to invest in areas we excel in and ensure we can continue to do so in the future. Failure to do so would seriously threaten, for example, the UK’s position as Europe’s leading manufacturer and developer of low-carbon vehicles – an industry which generates £1.5billion in research and development each year alone.
As the proportion of jobs requiring higher-level skills increases, maintaining and even expanding the number of graduates entering the workforce should be a priority across all subject areas, including the arts, social sciences and humanities.
If the government refuses to accept the many social benefits of a better-educated population, it can surely recognise the economic returns from investing in A-levels and degree courses.
60 Responses to “Putting an individual through university generates £227k for the economy”
Anonymous
But it doesn’t. And in most jobs, you;d have to accept that you’ll LOSE money to do a degree with the tiny graduate premium paid in the UK and the sky-high fees. America has a dramatically high graduate premium, for reference.
The smart students will go abroad. I have to accept that I’ll largely be teaching the….not-so-cream-of-the-crop and foreign students in future.
“The UK will not win a race to the bottom in terms of low wages. ”
No, but the Parliamentary Tory Party and their rich backers will. They’re all in it together.
Anonymous
Your racism is an injustice? No, it’s nothing of the sort, it’s pure racism. Devolved government have every right to do it, and it’s nothing to do with race outside your wold where you have preach hatred at every possible opportunity against anyone who isn’t a “Pureblood”.
Anonymous
The skills /are/ needed, however. Jobs are requiring higher skills generally, and jobs are requiring higher skills to carry out (not the same thing, it’s both a perception and a real effect stacked onto each other).
The percentage of graduates in the UK has fallen for a decade, and is now set to plummet. We need to go back to no more than 1k a year in tuition fees, with a 50% graduation goal AND vastly expand vocational training for the other 50%.
Otherwise, yes, you’ll drive the remaining graduates out when jobs leave the country as they are starting to.
Anonymous
Incorrect.
The number of people who go into a job directly connected with their degree, outside some specialist fields (medicine and engineering, mainly) has always been quite low. Moreover, increasingly even when it wasn’t previously necessary jobs are starting to require degrees. And not in the UK, internationally – companies will require the same kind of education levels across their business, and if the UK can’t provide that they’ll go elsewhere.
Anonymous
Yes, it’s so EVIL that investing in the future might be considered.