You'd be chuffing upset if you'd just spend the better part of £30K on a degree you'd graduated from the year before this was brought in.

The problem is that there are too many graduates doing jobs that do not even need degrees. Also if companies want someone with a degree allow them to pay for someone to do it. Also drop the 50% target for school leavers to enter university.

+1
Also, would employers be able to demand pay back if you moved companies within a year or two?

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I knew someone who did his engineering degree with his living costs paid for by BP. He had to do a minimum period with them on passing which he did. It worked out well for both of them. He had an easy life through university not worrying about the next meal, and they got a graduate who was committed to them for a few years as well. If he left early he would have to reimburse them. Seems fair though, you know what you are signing up for. It is similar to the armed forces graduate arrangements. They have to sign up for a period but have no debts and a guaranteed job when they graduate.

That used to be the way. A couple of friends of mine were sponsored through Uni by Sun Microsystems and had signed a contract to work for the company for 4 years after they graduated.

It's not quite that simple though, is it? The reason a large chunk of young people choose to do a degree is that there's pretty much nothing else to do.

Until apprenticeships are restored to their rightful place and we end our current, stupid fetish with academic achievement, we can do what we want to universities and nothing will improve.

You guys are fighting the last war. School and uni leavers today are entering the workplace for another 50 years, that's a time frame that stretches into the future, but you are thinking about it as if it extends into the past.

None of the old paradigms are coming back, no amount of nostalgia will change that. Kids with degrees are going to be better prepared, in most cases it doesn't matter what subjects(s) that degree is in, as long as they had to work, and think, pretty hard to get it. Old data about which degrees provided which jobs and incomes is not going to be relevant because change is on the way for many of the academic niches that used to guarantee good incomes (such as Law).

And that won't be the end of it either, lifelong learning is coming to eat your kids - if not you too. In 20 years we will no doubt have this whole debate again when a huge target is set for kids to go on to masters. Lots of 29 year olds will be on their second degree, and there will be a general whine about the decaying value of a doctorate or MBA (well, there already is).

We're agreeing again.

I do agree. Apprenticeships should be given much more priority. I also think that kids who are not academically inclined should be allowed to opt out of the conventional exams at 14 and be allowed to do vocational training plus maths and english instead. By pushing them through academic qualifications that they are not suited to will only mark them out as failures which could harm them for decades. So wouldn't it be much better to give them assistance to do something that they like and that can give them some self confidence in their skills?

I'm sure Prince Charles said that a couple of years ago and everyone called him an elitist bastard for it.