A leading UK university vice-chancellor has warned that a degree no longer guarantees a good job for graduates, citing a crowded market and the impact of artificial intelligence.
Professor Shitij Kapur, vice-chancellor and president of King’s College London, stated that the qualification is now "like having a visa" rather than "a passport to social mobility" in the competitive UK graduate jobs landscape.
He told The Guardian: “The competition for graduate jobs is not just all because of AI filling out forms or taking away jobs.
“It’s also because of the stalling of our economy and it’s also because of a surfeit of graduates.
“So I feel that that simple promise [of a good job] has now become conditional on ‘Which university did you go to? What course did you take?’
“The personal equation of the university as a vehicle for social mobility, almost as a passport to social mobility, meant that if you got a degree, you were certain to get a job as a socially mobile citizen.
“But now I think it has become a visa for social mobility, it means you’ve got a chance to go and visit that place called social mobility.
“Maybe you’ll make it there, maybe you won’t.”
University education has become a necessity for many and it is no longer something that is scarce, he adds.
At the same time, students are debt-ridden and have faced tuition fee cuts.
Domestic tuition fees do not cover undergraduate teaching costs and university staff are also overstretched, he points out.
Universities can use the higher fees to help back research and it can also open up the chance for students to access a wider range of courses.
