I was made to feel stupid for skipping uni. Now at 24, I have a house and no debt

Andy Burnham has been in No 10 for a week and, as expected, he’s wasted little time making it clear where he wants to take education. Throughout his political career, and in his nine years as the first elected Mayor of Greater Manchester, Burnham has argued that Britain has become too fixated on the university route, often speaking about the “degree of snobbery” that we as a country have around traditional academia and the need to raise the status of vocational and technical education. On Monday, he doubled down on that mission, announcing plans for secondary school pupils to study technical subjects such as manufacturing and artificial intelligence (AI) from the age of 14, alongside core academic learning. In doing so, he challenged what has long been one of the biggest unspoken assumptions in the education system – academia is king. “For too long in this country, students have been told that you must take the academic path to do well and to be respected,” he said. “The whole school system has been built around it and that has let down young people.” Shorts This echoes his June 2023 speech for the Education for 11-16 Year Olds Committee, where he argued that “we have collectively, as a country, allowed the university route to dominate English Education for decades. Let us be honest: there has been a degree of snobbery about that.” As somebody who chose not to go to university, I think he’s absolutely right. At my mixed-sex grammar school in Buckinghamshire, academic achievement wasn’t just encouraged, it was expected. Hours of our school time were blocked out to write UCAS university applications and the accompanying personal statements. And when I used that time to look at alternative post-school routes instead, I could see the surprise (and, honestly, disappointment) from my peers and teachers. If you were getting good grades, university wasn’t presented as one option of many; it was the only destination to aim for, the correct next step to take. In my two years in sixth form [the final two years of school], we spoke about universities almost weekly, but I can only remember one one-hour session on apprenticeships. Even then, it didn’t carry the same excitement or prestige. It felt like a tick-box exercise, proof that we had been told about another option but really it was a second choice. I was made to feel like going down that route was an inferior decision. Despite my school acting like a Russell Group advertisement, six years on, I don’t regret my choice at all. Learning on the job – as a journalism apprentice – was one of the best decisions I ever made. By the time many of my friends had graduated, some in the same field as me, I already had years of on-the-job experience, had started my career and didn’t have the pressure of thousands in student debt. According to 2024 data by the House of Commons Library, the average student loan debt for borrowers in England was approximately £53,000. Looking back, I wonder how many more of my classmates would have chosen a similar route to me if only someone had told us that there wasn’t only one route to success. When I ask them, some of my friends had a great time at university but around half regret attending. Only a handful have landed jobs in their degree field. As of early 2026, 400,000 UK graduates are claiming benefits, according to The Centre for Social Justice. And with the number of entry-level roles getting smaller, making the competition even higher, over 700,000 people are fighting for limited vacancies. The unemployment rate for graduates has risen to six per cent and youth unemployment in general (those aged 16 to 24) hit 16.1 per cent in February. That’s why Burnham’s new reforms matter. It isn’t just about teenagers having more access to careers like construction, coding and manufacturing; it’s about changing a culture that has, for decades, treated vocational Education as a Plan B rather than an ambitious route in its own right. It should never have been viewed as a second option for pupils who may struggle academically, and even more so for those who are classed as “bright”. As Burnham has said, it should be an equally respected route to a traditional skilled career. I’ve seen firsthand how people can have respectable careers without passing through higher Education. Of course, plenty of young people will still choose university – the number that applied reached a record high of 289,200 in 2024 – and for many professions it is an essential stepping stone. What I hope is that the next generation no longer feel they’re wasting their own potential, as I did, by choosing an alternative route – or a technical path. It’s not so much that one is better than the other but they deserve to be seen as equal. The reforms are far more important than introducing a handful of new subjects. It’s a step closer to dismantling the snobbery around what success actually means, and I, for one, am glad Burnham has started his time as Prime Minister calling that out.