Citation
(2006), "Student debts “push disadvantaged graduates towards lower-status jobs", Education + Training, Vol. 48 No. 2/3. https://doi.org/10.1108/et.2006.00448bab.004
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2006, Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Student debts “push disadvantaged graduates towards lower-status jobs
Students from low-income families are paying more for higher education because they incur heavier debts and receive less help with repayments once they graduate. Financial pressures also mean they are more likely to take jobs that do not require a degree when they leave university, according to research by the University of Glasgow for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. The last in a series of reports charting the progress through higher education of young people from disadvantaged areas of western Scotland shows that, without significant financial support from families, they often felt compelled to take the first job that came along. This, in turn, made it harder to launch a graduate career or gain skills that would help them to move to jobs where they would be better able to repay their debts.
The study, based on a survey of more than 250 young people, found that their progress from college and university into the labour market had tended to be slow. A year after they graduated, just over four in ten had entered a graduate-status occupation, with only one in five employed in a relatively secure graduate position. In addition:
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Those from the most disadvantaged backgrounds faced the greatest difficulties in the labour market, especially women graduates. Despite having completed a course of higher education, their job expectations were relatively low.
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Although relatively few directly blamed their difficulties on class or gender, a substantial minority of graduates thought their accent or the area where they lived was holding them back.
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Graduates from low-income backgrounds were less likely to have developed clear plans for their future, gained in confidence or extended their social networks in ways that could help them to find degree-level employment.
The researchers, nevertheless, emphasise that many of the young people who took part in the study had made impressive progress in difficult circumstances since they were first interviewed at the end of their school careers five years earlier.