The average graduate in their 20s goes £1,600 deeper into student debt every year, or just about over £30 per week. This isn’t what they were promised.
They were told that university was the surest route to better pay and lifelong security. Many working-class children were sold a powerful dream: that they could build a better life for themselves and their families if they managed to get into university, and graduate with a degree. Tuition fees, they were assured, would only ever be repaid by those who could afford it.
Today, millions feel betrayed. They make repayments each month, only to watch their debt continue to rise. Energy prices are astronomical, reportedly 81% higher than France last year, and the housing market is at its most unaffordable in 150 years. For many, the promise of a life of financial sustainability has been broken.
None of this has happened by accident. These problems are the consequence of a politics that has repeatedly prioritised lobbyists, consultants and lawyers, and ignored the interests of the British public, particularly young people. ‘The lost generation’ are not lost because they lack talent or drive. They are lost because government after government has failed them.
For over a decade, the expansion of higher education was treated by politicians as an unalloyed good. Participation targets were set, the number and variety of degrees offered at universities multiplied and schools placed extra emphasis on pushing more students towards universities.
But the jobs market has not expanded in line with the increase in graduates: now, there are an average of 140 applicants for every graduate role. This has left many struggling, unable to get a position that rewards at least three years of full-time studying at university – or, in some cases, unable to get a job at all.
Despite this, successive governments have claimed that young people are £100,000 better off over a lifetime if they graduate from university.
So what’s the truth? We still don’t know.
If graduates truly are £100,000 better off over a lifetime, then the average Plan 2 graduate should see their debts falling, not rising. Those leaving should see a path to paying it off, to owning their first home, and to starting a family. Many, unfortunately, are forced to move back in with parents, or leave the country for somewhere more affordable, with better prospects.
And so an entire generation find themselves in a peculiar trap. Now in their 20s and early 30s, they are unable to afford what their parents and grandparents could. For many, the investment in university simply hasn’t paid off.
None of this means the situation is irreversible. But reversing it requires honesty and transparency, both of which are in short supply in Westminster. It means politicians telling the truth about the real state of our university system, and the benefits it does and doesn’t bring. This isn’t an argument against universities: they have been instrumental in so many of our successes, but we must be clear that they do not deliver tangible benefits for everyone who attends.
Britain’s lost generation are not asking to be handed everything on a plate, like many have argued. Rather, they are asking for a system that does not actively undermine them – one where effort is rewarded, and where the dream that was sold to them is achievable. They are also asking for a world in which there are jobs for them to take. Where companies can thrive and ambition is rewarded.
Britain does indeed have a problem. But the problem can be solved. The question is not whether it is possible, but whether our current politicians are prepared to confront it.
