In many industries, I personally believe that University is not necessarily the quickest route to gaining success and working up the job ladder. Of course there are a handful of industries where further education at University is crucial - such as healthcare. However, there are many industries where learning on the job could be a better option than going to University to get a degree on the subject. There are some industries, like becoming a car mechanic, which is quite likely to be thought on the mass scale as a job to learn as an apprentice or work experience as oppose to getting a degree at University for. However I think it goes further than this. Take television production for instance. There are many University courses specialising in the subject, but from experience - I believe you learn more, and quicker, whilst working in the industry and gaining first hand experience as oppose to hearing what it is like.

It depends on the university. In many cases it's not the education you receive or the eventual grade of your degree, but who you mean whilst you are there, the contacts you make and the name of the university you went to. If you wish to be an artist, going somewhere like Goldsmiths, The Slade or St. Martins will push you further in your career than going to, say, Derby University. You may come out with a First from Derby but it is unlikely you will have been tutored by famous artists or have well known curators and gallerists visit your degree show. The well known universities also have good links with industry and can place their students in good jobs on leaving.

I beleive that Postgraduate Education is important indeed, it is better to do postgraduate education than to immediately get a job after graduate education is finished. The higher a person's education is, the more likely it is that this person will contribute to society on a grander scale. Just think of all the doctors society would not have if they had stopped at the graduate level.

Higher education is a verygood investment for a lifetime. As a perusal of any job board will reveal, most high paying jobs require a college education. It hard to find a good job without a college diploma. And what we can see today is that most human resources departments ignore applications that do not include proof of a college education. They wont be able to see find out you qualities and you talents and what you can really do through a simple application. You can almost always make more money if you have been to college.

Always? “No”. It depends on the individual, the job and the employer.

The individual: There are “quite a few” drop-outs who did well – e.g. Bill Gates! And individuals with drive and ambition can generally achieve success in whatever field they choose. Such individuals may go on to build vast companies, or simply remain a successful “sole trader” in their field, from painter-decorator to children’s author to politician to actor etc. etc.

Putting sole traders aside let’s look at the typical job – working for a company, small or large.

The job: Of course many jobs require specialised education – medicine, nuclear physics for example – and without a recognised qualification even an entry level job is unavailable.

But otherwise the most important thing is getting a foot on the ladder. Once an individual has their first job it is up to them to show their employer what they can do.

The employer: this to me is the sticking point. Leaving aside jobs that NEED special education, employers should be looking for motivated, intelligent candidates with the correct NATURAL APTITUDE for the job. Sadly in many cases it is assumed that having a degree demonstrates these qualities, and therefore “degree necessary”. But we all know people with degrees who do not have these qualities, and people without degrees who have all.

My career in IT was made possible because my first company was looking for school leavers. I was bright enough to attend university but family circumstances did not allow it. It turned out that I have a natural aptitude for logical thinking, and my first employer tested for that. There is no need for special education to become a programmer or analyst or system designer… instead a logical mind is the requirement. During my career I met many with good degrees who were useless in IT – they didn’t have the correct wiring in the brain and were in the wrong job. On the other hand, I met many with no formal qualifications at all who were brilliant.

Conversely many excellent people in IT would be useless at creative writing, or selling, or Human Relations. I am sure that in non-specialised fields the same holds true – on-the-job training and experience combined with a natural aptitude for the type of job is much more important than academic paper.

Therefore employers should target their selection process to find motivated, intelligent individuals who, most importantly, have the NATURAL APTITUDE for the job.

I think it honestly depends on the type of career path one wants to pursue. Ofcourse having a university degree is favourable by employers, organisations and companies, however if you have access to the internet nowadays if you really wanted to, you could teach yourself the specific skills you truly want, supposing you have a high level of motivation to keep it up meanwhile also saving spending money on university education. The disadvantage of this option however if lack of engagement with other people, but the benefits would be money saved and only focusing on what you want to learn.

It is also possible to attend and learn specific online courses and attend training courses which train you into a specific role. Jobs that carry out these type of excercises, include airline cabin crews for example.

University is certainly a good option if you want to reach the higher pay scale jobs, and reach manager positions straight from graduation. However it definitley is possible to make it in other ways. Several famous entrepreneurs such as Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, and Bill Gates for example, all dropped out of university and are now some of the wealthiest earners on the planet...

My conclusion is that university is a good option to getting a pretty good job, but it's not the be all and end all of making it to the top. It's simply a train that can help take you to where you want to be faster, but you can get on other trains too.

Unfortunately, a university degree is nota guarantee for a successful life or a good job nowadays. The fact that to graduate is much easier than it was years ago makes the diploma not so valuable. Furthermore, there are a lot of examples how really prosperous people have not attended university but rather have innovative idea.