Why are young people questioning the value of university?

Why are young people questioning the value of university?

For much of the past three decades, the expansion of higher education has been treated as an unquestionable public good. Governments encouraged greater participation, universities expanded capacity and schools increasingly measured success through progression to higher education. Across the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States, a university degree became synonymous with opportunity, social mobility and future prosperity.

Today, however, there are growing signs that this consensus is beginning to weaken. Young people have not stopped valuing education, nor have they abandoned their ambitions for professional careers. What is changing is their confidence that university represents the most reliable route to achieving those ambitions. Increasingly, young people are asking questions about value, employability and return on investment that universities have often struggled to answer convincingly.