A former architecture graduate with £50,000 in student debt argues UK universities are now a scam, charging £45,000 to £100,000 for degrees that don't prepare you for work. He points to AI tools, online learning, and apprenticeships as cheaper alternatives, and notes that starting work early can earn you £50,000+ by your early twenties while peers stay in debt.
Why university is now a scam. Now I used to defend university. People don't know this, but I actually went, and it was a complete waste of time and money, by the way. And people are shocked because they think the degree I did would have been really good for what I do now. It was a complete waste. And some people say, oh yeah, but you get social skills at university. No, you don't. You can get social skills anywhere. You can get social skills doing an apprenticeship. Anyway, I'm going to tell you how much debt people get into to go to university. Let me know in the comments if you have kids. Are you thinking about sending your kids to university? If so, you need to watch this. I'm also going to share a YouTube video I did with you, completely no cost to you, where I go into more detail. So stay with me till the end. This will be a quick one. So I used to defend university. Because, you know, we need doctors, dentists, lawyers. We need these kind of professionals. Here's the thing though, with AI now and the ability to self-learn, I'm not saying anyone should just get a knife and have a go. Definitely not. But there are a lot more things now that you can self-learn that don't cost you 15 grand a year. So if you look at the average debt that someone gets into at university in the UK, it's about 15 grand a year. So a 3-year degree, 45 grand. £5,000, but many degrees need 5 years or 7 years. You could be £100,000 in debt. Do you know the record level of debt for studying at university is nearly £300,000? And do you know what a lot of people do when they go to college and then university and then get a degree and then get a master's? What that actually is, is really expensive active procrastination. That's what it actually is. Avoiding doing the thing, which is getting the work and making the money. Do you know also now there's degrees in puppetry? Puppetry. I mean, that's ironic right now where we're at, isn't it? Now, I think 50 or 100 years ago, university was good. And like I said, for proper professions, I used to defend it. And you know, when we were in the industrial age, and we needed a load of people to work for us in the industrial age. University was churning out a lot of good workers for the industrial age. The thing is, we're now in the information age, the technology age, the AI age, and college and university has not moved on at all. And now your kid can launch a channel on YouTube at 6 or 8 or 10 and make more money than college professors. And college professors are earning £37,000 a year, something like that, on average. And they're teaching business, economics, and finance, having never run a business properly and not having any money. Because no disrespect to anyone, but £37,000 before tax is not a lot of money. And you should not be learning about business and finance and economics from people who earn that low level of money. And look, of course, you know, they could have other professions. But now they're teaching things like puppetry. The university college system is really outdated. The new modern world of AI and information and social media and content and personal brand, all of this stuff, they either don't teach at university or they can't teach at university because they're so stuck in the industrial age. Our kids can probably teach them better than them. Save yourself and your kids 15 grand per year and go and learn what you want to do from podcasters, from YouTubers, from people who stream live on the internet. Use AI, have Grok and ChatGPT help you and self-skill. Now here's what I plead to colleges and universities to do. I plead to colleges and universities to get more people in for apprenticeships. Bricklaying, roofing, trades. We desperately need a lot more tradespeople in the UK, and, and college and university is the perfect environment for that. But if you want to be a CEO, an entrepreneur, a creator, you want to work for yourself, then college is probably outdated. It might even be a scam. It's going to get you masses in debt and probably just going to hold you back 5 years. I've got lads that work for me that I talk to who are in their early 20s. And, you know, they started working age 18. Some of them now in their really early 20s are earning £50,000 plus. They're living with their parents. They've got loads of disposable income. And their mates are still at university getting £15,000, £30,000, £45,000, £60,000 in debt. They're like 10 years ahead of them. Just because they went and properly worked. And what this country needs is people to properly work. So they're my thoughts. Anyway, if you want to know more about this, if you're deciding about whether to send your kids to university or not, if you're thinking about going to university or not, then I'm going to share with you a YouTube video that I did on this subject. And I went into some detail and just sort of shared with you. I wanted to be fairly balanced. I mean, you know, still doctors, dentists, I was gonna say accountants, but you know, you can self-study a lot of this stuff now. By the way, most of the accountants and the finance people you have to hire now are just to work for the government to pay your VAT, to pay your corporation tax, to pay your income tax and everything else. And so anyway, you need to be creative and buck this trend. So I've just shared the link with you in the comments for the YouTube video. Also, screw it, what I might do today is give away some silver coins for subscribers to that channel. So it's actually my new channel, More Money. There's something like 53 or 54 episodes all about money, you know, the skill set, the mindset, and strategies, the tactics. Know more, make more, give more. Practical, tactical, all things money related. So I've shared the link in the comments. Go and click the link quickly. First subscribe to the channel, have a watch of the video, it costs you nothing. Um, let me know what you think in the comments. And I might go in and give away some silver coins in the comments today just for a little bit of fun. But I'm probably not going to encourage my kids to go to university. I went and got a degree in architecture. I got myself nearly 50 grand in debt, which took me from age 21 to age 27 to pay off. So I was in the wilderness financially for 6 years, and I only paid it off because I became an entrepreneur and had a really good sort of first year in business. Most people are still paying off their college degrees in their 40s and 50s and 60s. And do you know your student loans are top-heavy, so you're paying nearly all interest at the start? Bit of a, uh, that's definitely a bit of a scam that they don't tell you about. Anyway, if you, if you want to get more into this subject, you want to discuss, debate, talk to your kids, um, share, then, um, the link I've just shared in the comments, it's a YouTube link that I've shared. So I'll see you there. Subscribe and I'll give away some silver coins to commenters today. I think, why not? Screw it, let's do it. If you don't risk anything, you risk everything.
