24/10/2011 Inside Out South West

Hello, and welcome to Inside Out South West. Tonight, we are donning

our caps and gowns for a University Challenge. Our starter for 10, will

your degree get you the job of your dreams? In hindsight, I wish I

hadn't bothered with it, because I'm now in 20 grand's worth of debt.

I'll have to hurry you! Alvin Hall investigates new fees system.

going to show you what a degree can really cost and how you can avoid

those fees altogether. And, no conferring, are A-level students

being put off university? See what our exclusive survey says. I'm Sam

Smith and this is Inside Out South West. Going to university is a

pleasure and a privilege but with fees set to rise to up to �9,000 a

year, value-for-money is now an important factor for many people.

So, we have been examining the best and the worst courses to take in

the South West if you want a leg up the career ladder. 1, 2, 3... All

the hard work is over. These graduates from Plymouth University

are celebrating their greatest achievement so far. Now students

everywhere are finding out if their degree will get them the job of

their dreams. Studies show that graduates earn around �100,000 more

across their working lives than people without degrees. But a

recent survey from the Office for National Statistics found 20% of

graduates earn less than �10 an hour - what they would have earned

without a degree. So some are asking, is my degree going to be

worth the time and money? Donna Newman graduated from Exeter

University last year with a 2:1 in archaeology. But jobs in the field

are few and far between. So for the last 12 months, she's been cleaning

in a hospital. When I first started this job, I was a little

apprehensive. Obviously, as a graduate I hadn't expected get a

job as a cleaner or anything like that. But it's grown on me and I do

actually enjoy it. The most part I enjoy being with the patients, so

it has opened up my eyes. Donna says she was told the best way into

her career was a university degree. But despite doing some work

placements, she says she's come out over-qualified and under-

experienced. I was advised this was the best option for me and at 16/17,

when you're looking are trying to get to do something for your career,

obviously you're going to listen to what people tell you because you

put your trust in them to advise you correctly. Ambition thwarted,

she's now Disillusioned and in debt. I've learned the hard way that you

shouldn't listen to everybody else because a lot of it, I thought now,

Is lying because there is absolutely no opportunity at all.

In hindsight, I wish I hadn't bothered with it, because it hasn't

benefited me. In fact, it's left me worse off. I've used all my savings

that I had a university. There's only so far a loan will stretch.

I'm now in 20 grand's worth of debt and there are less opportunities

available to me. Part of me in a way hopes that I never earn enough

because I don't want to pay for the experience I had at university

because, like I said, it hasn't benefited me. So, with fees rising,

should students take a more hard- headed approach to their futures,

and choose subjects where jobs are plentiful, and rewards are high?

One academic economist says they should. Professor Ian Walker's

studied long-term graduate earnings, and found that those who did law,

economics and management are way ahead of arts and humanities

students, often by hundreds of thousands of pounds. Yet Professor

Walker says many students barely think about their future prospects.

Students' choices are remarkably insensitive to the earnings

differentials that they're going to face. It could be they simply don't

know and I think that careers officers, teachers and institutions

themselves have to put some effort into making students aware of the

consequences of their choices. So, one explanation is that they just

don't know. Don't care? And the other is they don't care. I worry

that they don't care is a dominant part of the explanation. So how

well are our graduates from our local universities doing, judged by

jobs and earnings after six months.? Our research shows the

only degree choices with zero unemployment and with every

graduate employed in their chosen field were medicine and dentistry.

An average starting salary of �30,000 made it the highest paid

area too. Second was nursing, with unemployment at 4%. The rest were

in their chosen jobs. Although the average salary was lower at �21,000.

Third was initial teacher Training - only 5% of the Plymouth

University students were out of work at the six month mark. And

nearly everyone in work was teaching, earning �21,000 on

average. Computer science, economics and engineering graduates

were also highly successful, earning around �18,000 within six

months. Some of those engineers may work here, at Centrax, whose giant

gas turbines light up cities around the world. This one, being tested

by graduate Steve Richards, is going to Russia. It's big enough to

power Newton Abbot, where it's been made. Steve's an apprentice who

then went to university - and he's still paying for his degree. Yeah,

I still have my student loan. The exact amount I couldn't tell you,

it comes out of your pay, depending what your pay package is, but I

think I'll be paying off for a while yet. He says a degree is not

the only, or even the best, route to an engineering career. I would

say personally an apprenticeship, because you have a trade behind you,

the practical side of which you can use in other instances. On top of

that, you need to get in the door, so you need a degree for companies

to say OK, we'll have a look at you. If you can get into a company who

are willing to sponsor you to do a degree, ideal. Robbie Kelham's done

just that - he's an apprentice who at just 22 has found his dream job.

I love the variety. There might be one day that I'm on a machine,

other day I'm building the robots, another day I might be welding.

It's a good job. I enjoy it. What differences have we got between

this one and the prototype that we've already developed? This one's

got two spindles... After a four- year apprenticeship, he's now

working for his degree. Centrax were happy to put me in for my

degree and give me all the training and knowledge that I was seeking

and that's what they're doing currently. And how much has that

cost you? Nothing, which is quite a positive! No, nothing. HE's already

earning a graduate level salary. The starting pay is 22,500, so I

think I'm quite lucky. I did land on my feet. Robbie's boss, Tony

Wiltshire, says degrees do open doors to top careers, but people

with hands- on experience are hard to beat. When we take somebody

directly from university, they don't have any relevant industrial

exposure at all. They're starting from a long way back in terms of

how quickly they are going to come up to speed for us. Relative to an

apprentice, that's spent some time within the business and has

acquired a lot of knowledge in terms of the technical aspects of

the business but also the skills of working with people. So which

courses came out bottom of the career ladder at South West

universities? While well over half of all graduates had succeeded in

getting a job after six months, the number getting a job where a degree

was expected varied markedly from course to course. For instance,

among archaeology graduates from Exeter, 40% had reportedly found a

Exeter, 40% had reportedly found a graduate level job. At Falmouth 20%

of "other creative arts and design" students had reported being in

graduate jobs and just 10% of graduates of English studies at

Marjohns had done so. Falmouth has the lowest percentage of leavers in

graduate level jobs out of the four South West institutions, and also

has the lowest average graduate salary of all universities in the

Falmouth's rector says Cornish graduates, like these from a local

design firm, are carving their own creative careers and that takes

time. We have statistics which showed 91.8% of our graduates are

in jobs or are in further study after six months. But that could be

any job, not a graduate one? That's true. But, we have long argued that

the way in which the statistics are gathered does not represent the way

in which the creative industries grow. A lot of our graduates set up

their own jobs, creative industries, and in six months they may not be

defined as a graduate level job, but at three years and at five

years, they would be. If you do it for example of earnings, Falmouth

is right at the bottom of the national league table for graduate

earnings. Prospective students are going to look at that figure,

aren't they, and say, hang on a minute, should I be doing an arts

degree? Should I be coming to Falmouth? Obviously it's an average.

We've got very high-performing graduates. It's six months, which

is a distorting factor. You set up a business, you're not going to be

taking a lot out of it at six months but you will much further

down the line and we have some incredibly successful businesses

that come out of Falmouth and that are big contributors in this hugely

growing sector of creative industries. Fine art would be the

area that traditionally people would think would be less likely to

have a graduate level job straightaway. I'm a fine art

graduate myself. I went out and set up a publishing company within a

year of finding out what I wanted to do. It's a very successful

company to this day. Would you have paid �27,000 to do a fine art

degree? I would, because my level of ambition, my belief that I can

transfer my skills into all sorts of things came from the lateral and

searching education that I had, which is typical of fine art

education. Olly Barnes joined A- Side Studios, set up by Falmouth

graduates, after he graduated from the college. I thought it was a

brilliant course. I learned a fortune off all the tutors and

everyone there and really enjoyed myself. But Olly only paid �1,200 a

year in tuition fees and wonders whether he'd do the same again at a

cost of �9,000 a year. Taking on that much debt, I probably would

try to get into the industry without going to university.

yet Olly knows being a graduate got him through the door... Without

this sort of skills on the training that I got from Falmouth, I

wouldn't be where I am today. you can understand how young people

now... Are fed up by it? Yes. Yes, of course. Young people, old people,

anybody who's going to get told that they're going to have to start

life with 30 odd grand debt, you'd be a fool not to think twice about

it. For many students, the point of university life is learning to

stand on your own two feet. All Richard Forbes-Simpson was

interested in was surfing, so the surf science and technology course

at Plymouth gave him a reason to go to university. He says it changed

his life. Now he's running his own web design business. Going to

university gave me the sense of responsibility. Coursework, exams,

deadlines. And it's not just University that taught me a lot. It

was life outside university, living away from home, paying your bills

and all the other responsibilities of being an adult. Richard thinks

anyone who can go to university should, whatever subject they study,

and despite the tuition fees. There's a lot of people who at that

age, didn't know what they wanted to do in university, just something.

The moment I realised it was worth all that money was when I graduated

and I felt so proud, like a lot of students did. The biggest thing for

me then was the sudden realisation that I could do anything that I

could put my mind to. But for others university has proved the

wrong path. I've spent all my money doing this degree that I was told

would practically guarantee me a job that I wanted when I left

university and it hasn't at all. It's left me worse-off, it really

While there are mixed views on the benefits of a degree education, you

would be hard-pressed to find any student who welcomes the increased

cost. So we asked financial guru Alvin Hall to crunch the numbers

and find out if there really are Young, confused and afraid? This is

what thousands of teenagers across England fear. A lifetime on the run.

But what is chasing them? Student debt. But is it really going to be

the horror movie that we have been led to believe? Whether you think

next year's hike in fees is fair or not, it is happening. So young

people need to know the facts. I am going to show you what a degree can

truly cost and how you can avoid those fees altogether. Next year,

English universities will charge up to �9,000 a year. With living costs

on top, graduates can face debts of around �50,000. But how much will

they actually end up paying back? Well, I have come to meet some

sixth formers in Birmingham to show them. I think the number is going

to shock them. I think that earning interest over such a long time as

you are paying back that loan really is a number that most people

do not think about. Let's imagine that you graduate from university

with �50,000 worth of debt. And you get a high-paying job, like we

expect Jacob here will get. How much of that money do you have to

pay back? I'm not quite sure. All of it? All of it and more because...

Interest? Interest. Oh, God! God is right! �75,000. Is that just

for one person? Just for one person. That's horrible. Is it just for the

average degree? The average degree of three years, if you take out the

maximum loan. But what if, for some reason, their careers don't go as

planned and they never earn more than �21,000 a year? The amount you

have to pay back is... Zero! So, what's going on? Basically, the

repayment of the loan works like taxes. The more you earn, the more

you pay back. If you never earn above a certain amount, you never

pay back a penny. The independent taskforce on student finance is led

by Martyn Lewis. The biggest confusion out there quite simply is

people confuse the price tag of these �9,000 fees, and it will

total �50,000 at the end of university, with the actual cost.

This is a very different type of system. Many people won't come

close to repaying in full what they borrowed. Some won't pay anything

at all. And the bewildering fact that we're putting people off going

to university because they are looking at the price tag and not

the cost is the biggest problem to me. But most graduates will face

large debts. So is there any way of avoiding the fees? Well, yes. You

can study abroad. At the recent Student World Fair in London,

teenagers discovered just how much they can save. I think everyone

would rather go to a university where they are paying �9,000

cheaper than the UK. The fees are a lot cheaper. So when you come out,

you're not going to be in so much debt. In fact, dozens of

universities across Europe offer courses taught in English. The fees

differ from country to country, but in Scandinavia, tuition is free.

Denmark we have no tuition fees at all. Because the Danish government

pays for Danish students and, according to EU rules, we have to

treat other EU citizens alike. Harriet Moore has already taken the

plunge. She is off back to uni in Slovakia. I'm trying to save money

on my flights so hand luggage it is! Over there, she saves a fortune

on living costs, spending just �100 a month. I caught up with her via

webcam. What would be the piece of advice you would give to anyone

considering doing what you have done? If you are even considering

it, I think you should go for it. It is definitely worth doing, you

just get on a plane. You have to be brave. But I've never looked back.

Time's up! I want my money. I want my 50 grand. So, studying overseas

might be one way to avoid the debt. But there are downsides. If you

study abroad, the Government here won't make you a loan, only some of

the courses are taught in English and some employers might not

recognise foreign degrees. So you need to do your homework. Another

way of beating the fees is to get someone else to pay. But who? Well,

London's financial heartland is a good place to look. Don't be fooled

by the power suits. Believe it or not, these youngsters are all

freshers. They are being sponsored by accountancy giant KPMG.

entire package was a degree, salary, the tuition fees paid and we had a

job at the end and you were helped to become a qualified chartered

accountant. It sounds too good to be true. Did you suspect there was

an catch? There is no catch. I don't think there is a catch. As

with everything, you have to work hard. That's the only catch.

the man who runs the programme tells me that KPMG does not offer

the stereotypical student experience. This is an extremely

intensive programme, they have to work for us and study for their

degree and they also have to attain their chartered accounting

qualifications. That will require hard work and that is all we really

ask of the students who join us. And then there are bursaries.

Students from low-income families can get money from various sources,

so it's worth trawling the web. But is there another way of avoiding

the debt? Well, you can pay up- front. 16 year-old Safina Adams is

trying to do just that. As well as studying for her A-levels, she

sells beauty products on her website. I started my business

because I wanted to save up for university and my parents said that

because of the high price of university fees, it would be too

much for them to pay for it. I am hoping to avoid getting into debt

because I know it takes a long while to get out of debt and I

don't want to be in that place. Government allows students to pay

up-front but most will have to take out a loan. But one financial

expert believes that graduates could end up paying back far more

than anyone has predicted. This financial journalist is warning

students to be aware. I think the problem is that the deal is

actually not the deal. There are all these numbers flying about

saying that you will be charged a certain rate of interest on the

loan and your repayments will start at �21,000 and over that you'll pay

a certain percentage. But actually, none of those parameters are in the

contract that the student signs up for. In fact, the Government can

change those numbers if it wants to in five years or 10 years, 20 years,

30 years. So students could end up paying a lot more. But any big

changes would have to be approved by Parliament. Like many Americans,

I graduated with the equivalent of tens of thousands of pounds worth

of debt. It was daunting. But if you know the facts, student debt

does not have to be scary. I So, what effect will increase

tuition fees have next year? Well, a survey for Inside Out suggests

one in 10 A-level students have been put off university. Freshers'

week. The first taste of university life for these Plymouth students.

They were the last to pay the lower tuition fees. If you want to come

that badly, the fees to some people are obviously going to be a problem,

but it you want it that badly, everything is a risk. The fees are

going to be a massive problem to a load of people but at the end of

the day, you're getting a degree and you will pay for it after. And

the interest does not really count because you will probably be in

work. Unless you have actually found a dream job or the job you

want, it will make no difference. survey for Inside Out asked more

than 1000 A-level students how they saw their futures. The survey

results suggest that 10% who were considering university have been

put off. But the vast majority said they were more than likely to go.

Chemistry is one of three A-levels Nathan Patterson is taking at

Churston Grammar School. He is expected to get excellent grades,

but unlike most of his friends, he is planning to earn while he learns.

Right, out of interest, how many of you are applying for university?

All of them but Nathan. Last July we had a careers day where it was

all about not going to university. That appealed more to me because I

was interested in apprenticeships, getting paid in employment and

still getting a degree in some cases. I thought it was more

suitable for people from my background, who cannot afford fees

and accommodation and travel. chemistry teacher supports his

decision. After you do that, what you do? I think he is making quite

an informed choice, whether to pay the money out, and all these people

will come out with a very large debt and they have to ask the

question, is it worth it? I feel that in 10 years' time, whether you

have a degree or not matters so little that it may be that it is a

very wise choice to go and do something else, possibly something

even more worthwhile than read books for three years. The Inside

Out survey suggests the vast majority of sixth-formers are

confident their career prospects will be improved by getting a

degree. However, around 60% are, like Nathan, also considering an

apprenticeship. He has set his sights on accountancy, calculating

that if he wins a place, he will win in the jobs race, too. I am

more or less guaranteed employment at the end of the apprenticeship.

The key point is four out of five of the people pass the exam, that's

an 80% chance of getting a job compared to one in six out of

university. And in four years' time we don't know how the market will

be, so it could be worse. education cuts! Many students

protested in Plymouth about the rising fees, yet the Inside Out

survey suggests that most A-level pupils feel the long-term benefits

of going to university will outweigh the costs. James Fox

graduated in drama last year and is now a paid officer of the Exeter

Students' Union. He believes university is an unmissable

experience. I think there is a lot of talk about students as consumers

and they have to be savvy about where they go and the importance of

that. In terms of the choice of their degree, people should always

study something they enjoy and are passionate about. I lived in a

house with six other guys last year and we all graduated in July and

have all managed to get graduate jobs. And people seem to be doing

very well and feel that going to university made a massive

difference to them. Nearly two- thirds of the students surveyed

agreed that it is incredibly hard for graduates to find jobs. With

youth unemployment at a record high of almost one million, Falmouth

rector Ann Carlisle is concerned for those who don't head to

university. I fear for those people. When I hear people say, I'm not

going to university, I always say, what exactly are you going to do?

And they imagine there are employment opportunities for them.

There aren't. I think there is no choice but to go to university if

you want to succeed. But Nathan is confident he will buck the trend

and do it debt-free. I wouldn't want to be 65 and still struggling

to pay off debts. I want to be in a comfortable job by the time I'm 30

so I can start to settle down without worrying about money and

stuff. You think you have made the right decisions? I believe so, yes.