Similarly, almost half of Britons say an apprenticeship prepares young people better for the future than a degree does
At Labour conference this year, Keir Starmer announced that two thirds of British children should either go to university or take on a gold standard apprenticeship.
The announcement is part of an ongoing shift in political prominence from advocating traditional academia to a much wider post-18 education approach encompassing skills training linked to jobs.
Indeed, a new YouGov survey shows that apprenticeships are viewed far more favourably in the eyes of the public than degrees.
Almost half of Britons say that apprenticeships better prepare young people for the future (46%), compared to a mere 6% who think that university degrees are superior in this regard. A further 43% see them as having equal utility in preparing young people for the world.
These figures are largely the same as when YouGov polled this topic previously in 2022.
Even among graduates, the number who believe apprenticeships are superior to degrees is more than triple the proportion who think the opposite (33% vs 10%).
Our poll also asked parents with children under the age of 18 what they would prefer for their children to do. Half (51%) say they would choose for them to do an apprenticeship over a degree, compared to 33% who would rather they went to university.
Graduate parents tend to take the opposite stance, with 47% saying they would prefer their child do a degree versus 38% favouring an apprenticeship, while non-graduate parents much more heavily prefer apprenticeships (59%) over degrees (24%).
Do too many young people go to university?
The prime minister shifting the target from the Blair-era ‘50% of young people to go to university’ could be interpreted as acknowledging that this figure is now too high. Regardless of the prime minister’s intent, higher education participation levels are an active subject of debate.
Our poll finds that almost half of Britons now think that too many young people go to university (45%), with only 23% considering the number to be about right, while 10% don’t think enough do so.
These numbers are largely the same between graduates and non-graduates – while graduates are slightly more likely to think that the number attending university is about right, this reflects a greater likelihood among non-graduates to answer “don’t know” rather than a difference in one of the other substantive answers.
While there have been some accusations that those who say too many young people go to university really mean that too many working class / other people’s children attend, and that they would still prefer for their own children to go to university, the data does not bear this out.
Among parents with children under the age of 18 who say too many young people go to university, just 19% prefer for their own child to go to university, while 73% would rather they did an apprenticeship.
What is the point of university?
Ahead of her Conservative party conference speech, Kemi Badenoch attacked “rip-off degrees”, with reports that the party would be cutting low-performing degrees (based on weak job prospects and limited earning potential) and funnelling the money into apprenticeships.
This focus on job prospects and earnings – which mirrors similar pledges in the 2024 Conservative manifesto – does beg the question: what is the point of university? Is it financial, academic, or something else?
The public tend to lean towards the former. When we asked what Britons consider the ‘main’ point of a university education to be, by some margin the most common answer is “to get a good job afterwards”, at 35%.
A further 25% see the main purpose of going to university as gaining knowledge and expertise in a specific subject, while 13% see it as developing wider critical thinking, analytical and problem-solving abilities.
For 16% the main reason to go to university is for personal growth and self-discovery by being exposed to others with different cultures, ideas and perspectives.
Graduates and non-graduates differ slightly in their beliefs – graduates are more than twice as likely to see the main point of university as being to gain wider critical thinking and similar skills, at 22% to 9% among non-graduates.
At the same time, non-graduates are somewhat more likely to see the main purpose of university as to get a good job afterwards (37% vs 30%).
Those Britons who see the main point of university as developing wider critical thinking and similar skills, and those who see it as being to offer personal opportunities for growth, are less likely to say apprenticeships are better than degrees (being more likely to say both are equally good, rather than that degrees are better).
Whatever they think the main point of university is, however, the most common stance is that too many young people are going.
What degrees do Britons think leave students off?
While Kemi Badenoch did not actually single out specific courses for cuts, news coverage ahead of the speech speculated that it could include performing arts, English, design, sociology, anthropology, media and psychology.
It is certainly the case that these subjects tend to come towards the bottom of the league table in terms of which courses Britons think leave students better off.
The public are most likely to think that a degree in performing arts won’t leave a student better off, at 54%. Significant numbers say the same of media studies (47%), philosophy (46%), English literature (44%) and sociology (43%). Fewer say so of anthropology, although this appears to be because a larger portion of the public don’t know what the subject actually entails.
The prospects of graphic design and psychology students, by contrast, are much more healthily regarded by the public, with an 51-52% believing the typical student taking these courses will end up better off (compared to 26-27% who disagree).
This is still a far cry from the usual suspects at the top of the table. Medicine is the course we asked about that the largest number of Britons think leaves students better off, with 86% saying so, followed by 83% for law, and 79% for mechanical engineering.
That a course does not leave a student better off does not necessarily mean the public vilify that subject, however. Our results show that the number of Britons who actively disapprove of each course is significantly lower than the number who think it doesn’t leave students better off.
The courses with the worst reputations prove to be performing arts and media studies, which 31% of Britons disapprove of. However, these scores are 23pts and 16pts respectively lower than the number who say each course does not leave a typical student better off.
A little over a third of Britons approve of performing arts and media studies (36-37%), while 27-28% neither approve nor disapprove.
No other courses we asked about come close to these levels of disapproval, although one in five Britons disapprove of philosophy (21%), and 18% disapprove of sociology. Unsurprisingly, only tiny fractions disapprove of the courses seen as most likely to leave students better off.
What do you think about the number of young people going to university, whether degrees or apprenticeships are better, and everything else? Have your say, join the YouGov panel, and get paid to share your thoughts. Sign up here.
Photo: Getty
