I Wish I'd Done Something Else

...but not something very different.

The FT reports today on a survey from the CIPD which headlines with the ostensibly alarming statement that a third of graduates 'rue' their degree choice.

The thing is, the article actually then goes into the findings of the survey, and the results seem actually reasonably positive. Graduates who started work in 2000 have "enjoyed rapid improvements in both real and relative earnings", with salaries increasing by an average of 55 per cent since they graduated, which sounds pretty healthy. And 'most students' (an unquantified amount, but one I expect is rather high (edit: now the story has hit the Guardian, I see I am a soothsayer - it's over 90%)), would have gone to university if they had their chance again, so aside from a vague yearning to have perhaps done another subject (one I'm certainly prone to when when I see the earnings of solicitors), graduates seem quite happy with university.

It's almost as if the journalist wants people to believe that the findings are bad!

But it's difficult to assess how good that data is, because the survey's not currently available online and I can't therefore check the methodology. Some clues are available. The graduates starting salary is quoted as £19,451, which is about 2k north of the real figures, and there's a whopping gender pay gap of 14 per cent. Put together with the fact that it's the CIPD we're talking here and I suspect we're looking at London-based professionals, which also implies a prevalence of private-sector managerial or financial service employment for the men, and perhaps a larger proportion of public-sector employment (still, despite what the Daily Mail might tell you, lower paid) for the women.

One interesting point is that the chief economist of the CIPD, John Philpott mentions that many graduates "will be unable to fulfil their wish to retire early." The UK Graduate Careers Survey from earlier in the year made the hugely entertaining finding that 4% of graduates this year expected to have earnt enough to retire by the time they were 30. If young people are being that unrealistic, then it is not a failing of the education or employment system.

Postscript (for now):a little bird tells me that this survey isn't out until the New Year.

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