Telegraph weekly columnist and blogger Bryony Gordon, a twenty-something, has outed herself today as a "good for nothing, low-down, dirty dropout without a degree", like yours truly:
"Clearly university is not for everyone - yet still Labour presses ahead with its target of getting 50 per cent of school-leavers into higher education.
When people ask me what my degree is in, and I tell them I have nothing more than a clutch of A-levels, GCSEs and swimming badges, a barrier comes down. I am now officially thick. But what's so shameful about being a dropout? For most young people, university is just a given, a way to stave off the real world for a little longer. While some might go to learn, most go to get drunk and get off with each other. There's nothing wrong with that. But nor is there anything wrong with choosing life over education, education, education."
There's two ways of looking at the Government's drive to shoe-horn 50% of us into university whether we need to go or not: that it means that you'd better make sure you're in that 50%, or that it means that as getting a degree means less than it did there is a chance you can use those three years to get ahead of the game without one. The pitfall with the latter is hitting a brickwall when job adverts require graduates only, but if you can prove your worth by the work you've already done then an open-minded employer should see that. A couple of rungs up the ladder and it won't ever be an issue.
I was asked about my reasoning for leaving uni in my ConservativeHome Q&A - it's something that comes up a lot. People too often see the means as an end in itself. There is the life experience side of it of course but it can wear thin after a while. It's a call that each person has to make based on what they want to do - clearly would-be doctors etc don't have the luxury of choice in this. Those who do should weigh their options carefully.