Is University Worth it Anymore?

I have had this conversation with so many people that I thought if I was ever gonna start a YouTube channel this would be the first thing I'd be talking about and here we are hi everyone my name is James Chani and if you're going university or you're thinking of going to university or you are confused and you're unsure of what to do well you found the right video for you because by the end of this I'm hoping to give you a very clear idea of what you may not be told about University it will give

you a good idea of whether you're gonna go into the right degree or whether that's the degree for you to go in and just kind of it hopefully it will help you is what I'm trying to say I'm just doing in a really long winded way it also may surprise you that I don't think student phones are a big deal should be a big deal at all considerations on whether you should go without further ado let's jump into it [Music] so we're kind of sold a script that you go to school you get good grades

and then you go to university and then from university you get your job I mean there's nothing wrong with that and there really isn't it's just universities have changed from what they used to be an honestly there would be no need for this video had it been during my parents time right in England for example universities were funded by taxation which is taxpayers would be paying for students to essentially go to university so it would be free it sounds good doesn't it eighty ninety eight tuition fees were introduced and it was based on your income

it was about like one thousand a year now in England it's about nine point two K a year and you might think oh that's strange because if it was free before surely now it's so much more expensive less people would be going but no and we'll cover why that is in just a moment everyone looks it's just a thing to do right and there's a lot of parental pressure trust me I've been there there's pressure from you know your friends because all my friends were going off to university is you get a bit of FOMO

it's like what am I gonna do cuz I'm stuck here with no job and people are gonna think are this guy's an idiot cuz he doesn't go you know and universities really presented to you as this very neat package they come into your sixth form or your high school or you go to their open days and it's like oh look how great is the car campus I've got all the people smiling and it's parties and it's fun and all of this will change when you see University for what it really is which is a business

a degree is a consumer product that's what it is it's you are going to university and you're exchanging your money or in this case you know someone else's money is alone for this degree this is the product that you're getting when you see universities as a business and you start to look at it from that point of view you're gonna start to see all the intentions behind what they're doing [Music] so the IFS in england has said that i think they expect 83% of students to pay back their student loans in other words there's an

83% chance that you're not gonna be able to pay back your student loan so what's going on in England you kind of are given loans for two different things you're given loans to pay off your tuition fees and you're also given maintenance loans this is for essentially helping you live it's to pay off your rent food that kind of thing and that's sort of the amount you get for your maintenance alone does depend on your income it's important to note that neither of these loans consider any material for your course so like books lab equipment

none of that is covered by those loans that's for you to pay for yourself and if you don't get enough of a maintenance loan they expect your parents to kind of supplement that that's important because some people's parents aren't going to do that which is really unfortunate the average debt of a graduate is about 36 grand but there's also one little thing that will probably not be a friend and that's called interest so you've got your principal sum which is you know roughly 27 grand or there abouts and then you've also got the maintenance loans

on top of that so that's 36 K on average then you've got interest which is a percentage of that total sum and it's added on to the total sum because obviously whoever's loaned you your money wants to make money from that essentially people hear about all you got to pay back this massive loan and they go oh by James hello you only have to start paying that back when you earn about 25 K a year so as long as I'm not earning that much I don't have to pay it back that's not how interest works

if you're not paying it back the interest is gonna keep adding on so the longer you sort of stay at home you know doing whatever you're doing the more the interest in the debt is gonna continue to snowball and build up and build up and build up so it's not a safe thing though just because they say oh you have to pay it back when you start earning this amount so don't worry about it is not a safe you don't trust me you're still gonna be a cure in debt all that being said student debt

should not be your biggest concern and let me explain why now in England you can choose how you want to pay back your student loans depending on the plan that you're gonna go for and there's a similar plan in the US but the most common one in England is you pay nine percent of your income which is above the threshold to 25k year that you're expected to earn a new pay nine percent of any money that goes above that from the income that goes towards repayment so let me give you an example okay and I've

got one written down here so let's say you're earning 40,000 a year so that's your income and above the threshold that is fourteen thousand two hundred and eighty so nine percent of fourteen thousand two hundred and eighty is one thousand two hundred and eighty-five pounds a year which is roughly a hundred and seven pounds every month that you're paying towards repayments for your student loan when you've really low K it's not a long you need to see kind of student loans is almost just like an extra tax that you have to pay because it will

automatically come off in England on your income statement and once it's been taken off it's been taken off on top of that in England after thirty years your student loan gets written off so if you don't pay that total some amount in that time it gets written off anyway so in other words it shouldn't be your biggest concern in fact if the only thing that's holding you back at the moment from going to university is you know bearing in mind you're going for a degree that you really want to do and you should you need

to go university you need to get that degree to get into that career and the only thing that's holding you back are those student loans go just go also it's worth noting that there's an opportunity cost that 50k that you've now spent towards repayment could have been used for putting down a deposit on a house or yeah that's what I can think of the point being you could have used that money for something else but chances are you may not have made that money without the degree in the first place the most important thing with

student loans to take away is that it's how the university now perceives you so you're no longer just the student you are profit you are a customer that is very important to know because it leads us on to the next part [Music] universities really have a marketing issue the Advertising Standards Authority has already made complaints I remember seeing this towards universities and their marketing material but here's the funny thing and you may not know this but there was a cap on the amount of students the university playing my cap was removed and now universities are

open to let as many students in as possible and the reason why that is huge is because now there is a major competition between all of universities to get students through the door this is why when I mentioned earlier on how does it make sense that when universities were free there were less graduates than there were today when it's far more expensive this is why because after all you are a customer and they need more of you because you give them the money in order to fund everything to university spend millions on their marketing millions

what's the problem with all of this I mean so what they're spending money millions to get us all in if you're telling me James I don't have to worry about student loans what's the consequence well you're about to find out whenever something is scarce and there's not enough of it there's it immediately has more value right whenever something is abundant there's a lot of it it doesn't have as much value that is really important what we're talking about now because in the 70s and the 80s about I think was nine to nineteen percent of young

British adults will go to university now the number is about 50% there's a lot more graduates now that's where there's this hog there's this whole concern of what is called grade inflation going on at the moment and that is essentially people's grades being much higher than they ever used to be and you might think oh maybe it's just that students have gone smile well they did standardized testing which is like IQ test and on average it's remained about the same the intelligence of students going to university has been about the same so why are grades

increasing at the rate they are well the ofs which is the office for students doesn't learn over three-quarters of what is considered this grade inflation cannot be explained I think the amount of people that passed with that pass now with a first or a 2:1 is something ridiculous it I've got it here 75% of students achieve one of the two top classifications which is a first or a to 175 percent there's no differentiating so you kind of see where I'm getting at if there's so many graduates the value of a degree is no longer what

it used to be how employable are you now if you have a degree I mean free up mist by saying if you're looking to get into a specialized subject you need a degree I if you're looking to get into law if you're trying to be as you know a surgeon a specific type of engineer you're gonna want a degree there's it's very unlikely you can ever get into those fields unless you start up your own business and did it yourself it's very unlikely you're gonna get into those fields without the degree 58% of employers rated

work experience as the most popular qualification among those presented they agree that the classes of degrees tell an employer a very little about person on that note my personal opinion on it is is this a degree can look good on a CV and I think it can definitely get you a foot in the door but that's about as far as it goes in your interview they really want to know they want to see whether you've got the resources that they're looking for because you can be trained in university but you may not be the right

person to train for a certain company depending on the field that you're going into with all that being said a degree can still be valuable so then why didn't I go [Music] as I said there's a lot of pressure from your friends from family from society they tell you you need to go University and then people pick the wrong degree or they pick anything that they can get their hands on will they pick something that they're not too sure about or they pick something just for the fun of it will they pick something because it's

one that parents told them that is the problem this is a difficult one to talk about because of the ages of like 18 19 20 21 you can't really know what you want to choose as a career you don't really know what you want I don't even think of you probably know what you want like it's a very difficult thing to ask someone to do and it's this problem with people choosing the wrong degree for a subject that they shouldn't have just take they shouldn't have taken people take stuff just because yeah just because they

they had to they were forced to kind of go into something right how do you solve this issue take a gap year a gap here is like this golden period after you finish high school six form and before you go into university a gap here is the golden period where you get this free time if you so choose to have of kind of exploring what you want to do and your choices and also get a break from you know you've spent all of these years in in education so it's that little one you're breaking take

the gap here I think of everybody that lasts for help in this video I think there was only one person who was an exception but all of them said I wish I'd taken together all of them for example up until the point where I kind of finish sixth form I always wanted to be an actor right it was the thing that I would tell everybody when I was I've been doing it since I was a kid since I was a teenager up until this point and I auditioned to go to drama school which is like

University but it's very much drama acting centered and I didn't get in and so I was basically putting a position where I was forced to take a gap year and thankfully I did because that gap year really allowed me to reflect on what I wanted and gave me a much better sense of direction of what I wanted to do which is why I ended up not basically going to university because I realized during that gap year that I had a big interest in business and entrepreneurship and I realized that I didn't really want to take

a degree I wanted to spend the three years that I would have spent in uni instead getting some real life experience and kind of well things like this right like starting up a YouTube channel starting up a business that I've got in the works at the moment in fact during that gap PA I started a business with a good friend of mine it was like a digital marketing agency a crazy saturated market but we started out together we did it for about six to eight months it was just us like cold calling restaurant owners because

that was this all niche we were going towards be corner on these restaurant owners we'd be booking meetings with them we would go in person and we try and pitch these restaurant owners our services and man I learned so much doing that so so much doing that it wouldn't have been possible if I didn't a leg up here and if you're wondering okay what should I even do during that gap year well I'll give you some hints right now you kind of want to start to like experiment just experience different things and see like what

you're more inclined towards and what you can potentially see yourself doing as a career I don't even think one year is enough to get a really good idea I genuinely don't but it's what you're given it's that golden period that you're given in that time here's here's some stuff you can do the first thing you can do is read a book or a few books and I know some of you probably like rolling eyes groaning but I think your books are so amazing for helping you get an understanding of different areas in your life I'm

talking nonfiction by the way not fiction I mean I'm sure if you read Harry Potter of your gap here you'd find enjoyable but I don't know if it would tell you a lot about what you wanted to do to study for university or whether you wanted to go I'm talking more like nonfiction airing more on the side of like business self-development that type of thing which is essentially what this channel is for remember to subscribe for example one book that I read which was my absolute favorite I'm gonna grab it now actually was this book

which is the Millionaire Fastlane by MJ DeMarco I hate the title of this book I sweat a lot but it is this book completely changed my perspective on money and business entrepreneurship it really really helped I read this during my gap year and it was one of the reasons why I decided not to go university because this book really helped me understand what I wanted from life and why I wanted to get from it at least for the moment in this current point in time that's just one example that like reading books is a great

great advantage it helps you get an understanding it can help you change your mindset and kind of change the way you think about certain things but if you don't want to read there's other things you can do another thing I recommend in a gap view is get a job I was working at a cafe during my gap year not for a long time but for about a month and a half I wish I had worked more longer than that but during that gap year I was also like doing some courses like studying for acting because

I was still kind of deciding am i doing this and I'm not doing this but getting a job is really good again it's that sort of work experience and life experience you'll understand what it's like to work in a work environment whether you know you're working at a supermarket one or in a cafe or restaurant or maybe it is an office job that you've got game experience is great like it can it can kind of help you again see what maybe or how you feel with the whole structure of a job and what this sort

of dynamics of a workplace is like another thing that you can do is travel everybody goes traveling on the gap here it's like the thing that everyone does if you have the money for it go for it I think traveling is something that I love and want to continue to do in the future and it can help you sort of get a sense for maybe again what you're looking for what you want another thing is going to networking events which I know a lot of people kind of see networking events as always like champagne and

you're munching cheese and it's not like a lot of the networking events you can go on websites like me up comm there's also a forum on the other ones there are other places if you just google search networking events near me you'll find them they they can be on anything they can be on like a business and real estate they can be like they have like video game nights if that if you're interested in that they have creative writing stuff if you just have a look you will see so many different events in fact I've

set myself a little challenge for 2020 which is to go to one networking event every single week but the point of it is really a networking event is a very good way of kind of I like to finger solve hacks the system right it allows you to meet people that you wouldn't have normally have met in that situation and it also pushes you out your comfort zone like a lot and that's always a good thing like it's always good to write to some degree to kind of push yourself to do something you wouldn't have normally

done there's a few things you can do no gap here yeah you got a lot of time trust me like your gap here is a lot of free time to try out a bunch of stuff by the end of that you should have somewhat of a clearer understanding of what you want to get into again I don't think a year is anywhere near enough to get that real deep standing now filly in university and you're watching this video you probably realize it's too late for the gap year but what you can do I think to

kind of make the most of that opportunity is again you can read books I always recommend that I love reading so I just I say this for anything it's my advice for anything but you can also network I think network in in university is a great great although nobody in uni is gonna be like whoa you know like billionaire millionaire maybe they're from way more families but there's a good chance that those people that you meet in university especially if it's a really well-known University in US a high reputation University there's a chance that those

people you meet aren't going to do great things in life and it's good to kind of know these people not to use them but to kind of benefit each other I think you're you're kind of doing yourself a real disservice if you don't try and network and talk to as many people in your classes or in in societies I recommend joining different societies in university you're doing yourself a disservice if you don't try and meet people there and make some good friends really buddy do study yes there's great inflation but I still means you've got

you gotta put some work and you gotta get your you you go get that degree at the end of the day so that pretty much concludes this video I was was quite nervous about doing this I've never done kind of ironic because I wanted to be an actor but I've never done a lot of you know in front of the screen type of acting and it's also a bit different when you're not really a character in your sort of yourself but I hope you enjoyed the video I hope it gave you a good idea on

whether you should go to university and if you're in university on the moment at the moment what to look out for and how to make the most out of that please give the video a like if you enjoyed it it does help a ton especially with the YouTube algorithm comment down below if there's anything you feel like I've missed or you have any other questions or if you've watched up to this point I know this is a long video so please do let me know down below hours to all of it and if you're interested

in kind of business off development personal finance that kind of niche I'm still trying to figure out what I'm doing here but do subscribe because I've got some awesome stuff planned on the way and yeah I think that concludes today's video I hope you have a wonderful day peace my friends [Music]