The last British Social Attitudes survey reported that “34% believe a university education ‘just isn’t worth the time and money it usually takes’, up from 14% in 2005”. I immediately thought back to this finding when reading about YouGov’s report that 54% of UK adults think degrees aren’t good value for money for graduates. However when I looked at the tracker it was clear this has been pretty consistent since at least 2019:
I’m not sure it’s reassuring exactly. But at least it isn’t the precipitous decline of trust which I think plausibly could be coming down the line. The question that increasingly plagues me is the impact which failing to deal with the AI crisis (and particularly being perceived, rightly or wrongly, to not be dealing with it) is likely to have on this prior trend. I worry that it could rapidly become the frame through which value for money for degrees comes to seen, particularly as AI-induced job losses potentially rise up the political agenda.
