Copy article

Is Britain's university model broken – and why is nobody talking about value for money?

ended 14. August 2026

Today's Times asks whether Britain's university boom is over and warns young people to think very carefully before going. Financial adviser Scott Gallacher believes we may indeed be approaching a crossroads where university is no longer automatically regarded as the default option for academically able young people.

Gallacher, director and independent financial adviser at Rowley Turton, says he is increasingly seeing squeezed middle-class parents question whether university still represents value for money.

"They are looking at the cost, the debt their children may carry for decades and, crucially, whether the graduate job at the end actually justifies it.

"For years, university has been presented as the natural next step for academically able children. I think we're potentially reaching a turning point where parents and young people start asking much harder questions about whether the numbers actually add up."

Gallacher says this raises a bigger question: is Britain's university model broken?

There appears to be a mismatch between the number and type of university places available and the graduate-level jobs and skills the economy actually needs. Meanwhile, young people can leave university with substantial student debt while employers elsewhere struggle to recruit people with technical and vocational skills.

Gallacher also questions whether the university system is delivering genuine competition and value for money.

"In financial services, we spend enormous amounts of time considering whether products and services represent value for money. Yet at 18, someone can make one of the biggest financial decisions of their life, with consequences potentially lasting decades, while courses and institutions offering dramatically different outcomes can charge broadly similar fees.

"If tuition fees were supposed to introduce an element of competition, where is that competition?"

Gallacher believes squeezed family finances, student debt and the increasing visibility of apprenticeships and other alternatives could eventually result in university attendance falling.

"And if fewer young people went to university but more entered good apprenticeships, technical training and careers where a degree isn't actually necessary, would that really be a failure? Or might it be a healthier balance for young people and the economy?"

Gallacher is interested in hearing from economists, employers, recruiters, academics, financial advisers, parents and recent graduates.

  • Is there a mismatch between university places and the graduate jobs actually available?
  • Has the university funding model failed to create meaningful price competition?
  • Should universities and courses with very different outcomes really command broadly similar fees?
  • Are parents becoming less willing to encourage or financially support university attendance?
  • Do students receive enough information about likely career and financial outcomes before choosing a course?
  • Are apprenticeships and technical routes still unfairly regarded as second-best?
  • Would fewer young people attending university actually be a problem?
  • And ultimately, who is responsible for ensuring students receive value for money?

9 responses from the Newspage community

Copy all

Star Quote
Copy

Editor
Scott Gallacher
Director at Rowley Turton
It seems we have almost sleepwalked into a US-style model where going to university — or college, as they would say — is as much a financial decision as an academic one. For some young people, the difference between three years at university and three years in work could easily run into six figures once tuition fees, living costs and lost earnings are considered. By 21, one person may have a degree but limited work experience, while another could already have three years’ earnings, workplace skills and career progression behind them. The real question is whether, for that individual and the parents often expected to fund a significant part of it, that course and that career genuinely justify the financial cost.
Copy

Editor
Tony Redondo
Founder at Cosmos Currency Exchange
Britain's higher education model is broken with the collapse of the graduate wage premium. Twenty years ago, median graduate pay ran 150% above minimum wage; today, at £26,500, it's just 6.9% above the 2026 National Living Wage (£24,785 on a 37.5-hour week), and on a 40-hour week that gap all but disappears. Add 40-year Plan 5 loan terms, which slap middle earners with an effective 9% marginal debt tax, and squeezed parents are right to question the return. Price competition has failed entirely: almost 99% of universities charge the maximum £9,535 fee regardless of course quality or payoff, while up to 40% of graduates end up in non-graduate jobs. Meanwhile engineering, tech and trades are crying out for skilled people. Degree apprenticeships offer a debt-free route, but employer supply is bottlenecked. Shifting participation toward technical training isn't failure but a necessary overdue economic correction.
Copy

Editor
Nouran Moustafa
Practice Principal & IFA at Roxton Wealth
I think we have spent far too long treating university as the default badge of ambition. It should be one route, not *the* route.

If someone wants to be a doctor, lawyer or engineer, of course a degree makes sense. But sending thousands of young people into three years of study, significant debt and then a job that never required a degree in the first place is not automatically a success story.

Apprenticeships and technical routes should never be treated as second-best. Done properly, they can mean earlier earnings, real experience, tax contributions and a direct route into employment.

The real failure is pushing young people towards expensive qualifications without asking whether the labour market actually needs them. Universities have a responsibility to demonstrate value, but government and schools also need to stop measuring success by how many teenagers they send to university. The measure should be where those young people end up afterwards.
Copy

Editor
Kate Underwood
Founder & Chief People Strategist at Kate Underwood HR and Training
Is university still worth it? For some, absolutely. For loads of people, no. I hire people. I've never once cared where someone went at 18. I care what they can actually do. A degree used to be a golden ticket. Now too many graduates land in jobs that never needed one, carrying a loan that behaves like a hidden 9% tax on their pay for decades. Meanwhile my small business clients are crying out for skilled, practical people they simply cannot find. An apprentice earns while they learn and walks away with no debt and real experience. Tell me again which one is "second best". The model isn't broken because young people got less clever. It's broken because we sold one route as the only route. University should be a choice, not a default. Right now it's dressed up as a default and priced like a luxury.
Copy

Editor
Harvey Dhillon
Founder & CEO at Zmartly
Value for money is already written into the law, and that's half the problem. The Office for Students must have regard to promoting it under the Higher Education and Research Act 2017, which means consider it, not deliver it. The OfS doesn't set the cap; the Secretary of State does. The test the Secretary of State used was about holding the cap's value in real terms, not about what graduates earn. Students are not short of information either: the official Discover Uni site shows job outcomes course by course where the numbers allow, and graduate earnings by subject at each institution. Strip out the top and bottom 5 per cent of higher education providers and median graduate pay five years out still ran from £20,400 to £42,000 in the 2022-23 tax year. Outcomes that far apart shouldn't carry the same price. I hold no data on whether parents are pulling back, so I won't claim any. Look up your course before you sign, then ask why so many providers charge the maximum.
Copy

Editor
Paul Denley
CEO at Oakham Wealth Management
Scott raises timely questions. Britain's university model looks misaligned: record participation coexists with skills shortages in technical roles - a mismatch between graduate supply & labour market demand.
Tuition fees have also failed to encourage price competition. Courses with very different employment & earnings outcomes can cost broadly the same, making it hard to judge value for money.
With debts & living costs rising, families rightly question whether every degree delivers a worthwhile return. Apprenticeships & vocational routes should not be dismissed as second best; for some careers, they offer a more direct route with less debt.
Ultimately, responsibility is shared. Govt should ensure funding encourages quality & outcomes, universities should provide transparent data on employment & earnings, and students need better careers guidance. Fewer graduates in oversupplied fields would not necessarily be a failure - it could help rebalance the economy towards skills in demand.
Copy

Editor
Eugen Neagu
Director at N2 Asset Management Limited
Britain has very good universities especially in the Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. There is good value for money for young people who work hard as it helps them get good jobs with good prospects.

My son has just received his A-Level results and has enrolled at Southampton University to study chemical engineering. He had good results, and he got the place was after.

There are fields where the value for money may be questionable like marketing, arts, economics, politics etc. However, a master degree in STEM is a requirement to be employed in certain specialised jobs like an application process engineer in a food factory to use an example of a job for a chemical engineer. An entry job for a chemical engineer starts at around £35,000 a year in the UK, but could be higher working overseas for an oil company.
Copy

Editor
Antonia Medlicott
Founder & MD at Investing Insiders
Students have been sold a dream of university providing well-paying jobs, but only some degrees provide this. With the cost of student loans, it’s important to look at all of the options before attending university. Courses like medicine, dentistry, and economics have huge lifetime earnings, but an arts degree could leave you struggling to even cover the interest on the debt.

Students need to be informed about all of the options available, and parents and teachers should be honest about the pros and cons of a degree and the outcome this will give them for their career aspirations before they commit to what could be lifelong debt.

Alternatives such as apprenticeships and degree apprenticeships should be more attractive than ever, as they will get people towards their career goals without the huge burden of student debt. It’s important to look at all of the options before attending university, now more than ever.
Copy

Premium
Debbie Porter
Managing Director at Destination Digital Marketing
The Education system as a whole is broken. We've started to encourage young people to choose a professional route earlier and earlier in their lives and I'd ask, who knew what they wanted to become at the age of 13? And now that you're a grown up, did you end up being what you envisaged you'd be? My own job wasn't even invented until I was 22 years old, so what are we excluding young people from whilst pushing them to an already-defined vocation so quickly?

Universities are closing courses like English Language and keeping courses such as Journalism; pushing vocational courses where jobs are 'guaranteed' at the end of them. As a marketer I've hired more English graduates than Marketing graduates - mainly because they've perfected the craft of writing much better and they're adaptable, rather than bringing 'big corporate' case study learning to an industry where the majority of businesses are SMEs. The dream has been sold incorrectly. And at the end of it, there's no plum job waiting.