By age 22, I’ll be £175,000 better off than my friends at university

Max Melia had always thought he was destined to go to university, but when he realised how much student debt he could rack up, he decided to take a different path. Max, 21, who lives in Bristol, is now glad he did not fall into the “university trap” and managed to secure a degree apprenticeship instead as he has calculated that by the age of 22, he will be around £175,000 better off than his friends who did go to uni. “At school, I remember this careers assembly where they were talking about the debt associated with going to university. I asked a question about the debt and if interest would be added to the debt. I was told that yes, it would,” Max told The i Paper. Shorts “I found that very surprising as not only is it a massive debt, it compounds over a lifetime of working. “I realise that you don’t actually end up paying it all off, but the total damage from that sort of student debt will be high.” After experiencing reservations about going to university, Max began applying for degree apprenticeships. He studied biology, chemistry and Maths at A-Level. He also applied to university for cyber security courses, but explained this was more of a “backup”. Luckily, Max managed to get a software engineering degree apprenticeship with the Ministry of Defence and says it is the best decision he has ever made. His apprenticeship had two routes – cyber security and software engineering. Once starting it, he found he enjoyed software engineering more, so decided to pursue that. While most of his peers are getting themselves into thousands of pounds of student debt, with uncertain job prospects, Max is now earning around £30,000 a year while living with his parents and simultaneously building an AI startup OptimusClips, an AI video clipping platform for content creators. Max projects being approximately £160,000 to £175,000 better off by age 22 based on his apprenticeship earnings and lack of student debt. Max said: “Four years is the length of my apprenticeship. I started on £25,000 in year one and will be on £32,000 in year four. I will have earned approximately £115,000 before tax. “But the biggest thing is that I will be graduating debt-free and if I take into account the advantage of not having that debt, I will be roughly £170,000 better off by the time I finish my apprenticeship.” He has based £170,000 his earnings over the four years of his degree apprenticeship as well as the £55,000, roughly, of student debt the average university student graduates with. He estimates he will also be £200,000 better off by the age of 28 through the compounding of his savings too as he has been investing the earnings from his apprenticeship since year one. Max has built his own startup called OptimusClips in his spare time, which is an AI video clipping platform for content creators He notes this estimate does not factor in any financial advantage from four additional years of work experience, or income from his startup OptimusClips. Pursuing a non-traditional route to getting a university degree has not come without its sacrifices, says Max, adding the financial trade-off can come at the cost of a social life. But he says he has no regrets. “I started my degree apprenticeship at the age of 18 straight out of school, just at the same time as other people were going to uni. “It was very steep being thrown into the world of work and balancing a degree alongside that. But I think I actually developed massively – it forces you to grow up very quickly and be able to adapt to a professional environment. “Financially, I am ahead, but it hasn’t come without its sacrifices. I am working nine to five on a day-to-day basis and it is a complete full-time job, so I don’t get the summer off like my friends who are at university. “I am not getting the full university experience of living in halls and renting a house with friends, or socialising as much.” He pays £300 a month in rent to his parents and was saving roughly half his income, although much has now gone into his start up, OptimusClips. “On top of my work, in the evenings, I have been working on my start-up for around 20 months. I have put around a quarter of my savings into a Lifetime ISA. But the hope is once I get my start-up going, it will generate much more significant returns than I would have had in savings.” As well as earning a salary, Max has the cost of his degree covered by the Ministry of Defence. He is urging more young people to consider all options, particularly when they are facing a difficult job market after university. “The university lifestyle is great and the lifestyle is more balanced, but if you take into account the financial impact and future career prospects because you are getting on-the-job training, I would say a degree apprenticeship is a better route,” he said. “I appreciate that a degree apprenticeship is not the easiest thing to secure. I do feel bad for my peers who went to university as a lot of graduates feel like they are treading water. With the student debt and the job market, it is a very difficult situation. “I think it is important for people my age to weigh up all their options.”