London: More than a third of students leaving university this summer secured a graduate job before they took their final exams, research has shown, indicating that the first cohort to pay 9,000 pound a year tuition fees is more ambitious and career-driven than any set of students on record.
The survey of more than 18,000 final-year students from 30 UK universities — conducted by recruitment analysts High Fliers Research — provides the first large scale data on how the trebling of tuition fees under the last government has affected undergraduate behaviour. The fee rises, which prompted mass student protests, have led to a sharp increase in debt, which has spiralled from an average of 20,400 pounds for those graduating last year to 30,000 pounds for the class of 2015.
The results also suggest that the higher costs of going to university has bred more studious attitudes, and a sharper focus on finding work after graduation. Nearly half of all those questioned had begun looking for a job before the end of their first year. For those who graduated in 2010, the figure was just 30 per cent.
In addition, half of the of the finalists said they had either done course placements, internships, or holiday work while at university, and had completed an average of at least six months work experience overall. But the number of students doing casual jobs — such as bar work, serving in restaurants and temping — during university holidays has dropped to its lowest ever level.
Final-year students from the London School of Economics were the most successful in securing job offers, with 67 per cent of those questioned having achieved a graduate role, followed by those at Imperial College London, Warwick, Cambridge and Bath.
Commenting on the survey, Martin Birchall, managing director of High Fliers Research, said that this year’s graduates had prepared more thoroughly for the job market than any other cohort in the past two decades.
“Although the class of 2015 face the highest-ever graduation debts, an unprecedented number have already secured a graduate job offer before leaving university and the proportion who are uncertain about their future is at its lowest level for 17 years,” he added.
For the first time since 2001, consulting received the highest proportion of job applications, followed by marketing and the media. The average expected starting salary has seen the largest annual rise for seven years, now reaching 23,700 pounds. Nick Hillman, a former special adviser on universities under the coalition government and head of the Higher Education Policy Institute, said the results showed that university reforms were working as ministers had hoped they would.
“First of all, students are being more demanding of themselves and their institutions,” Hillman said. “Secondly, the system seems to be shifting a bit closer towards a model in which universities are delivering oven-ready employees for the labour market — though of course higher education remains about much more than that too.
“It will be interesting to see whether once in the labour market, this cohort of graduates approaches employment differently from their predecessors, and whether they are more demanding about pay and conditions.”
— Financial Times
