Well fine - if you want to spend every day of your life mending lavatories or filling buckets with white powder and water and slopping the result on walls just to 'get on the property ladder'.

eric campbell, harrogate, uk

Well said Bill. I am a lecturer at a UK University and many of my students would be much more suited to a good trade than intellectual pursuits.

Alistair, Ferney Voltaire, France

As a University lecturer, I too agree that this is a ludicrous situation. The Government has pushed the degree as "the thing to have", to the extent of eroding the value of more vocational qualifications, and then taken away financial support as it would be "too costly". The result is that those who really *should* be taking a degree are left with a sizable debt, and left wondering whether it was all worth it or not. If we look abroad, say Germany, the situation is completely different.

Dave, Edinburgh, Scotland

My own children's experiences bear this out. No 1: 2:1 in trad arts subject - now doing nursing training after 5 years of underemployment. No 2: completed engineering apprenticeship - no student loan, earns good money and has good prospects. No 3: 2:1 in Business and IT, good job, but big debts.

Gill, Southampton, UK

Bill, you are absolutely right. Degrees are useless.

I graduated at age 22 in 1984 with a joint honours degree, an upper second, in Economics and German.

By the time I was thirty I was written off as unemployable. I have had only one job interview since, and that was a couple of months ago.

Michael, Brighton, UK