Why do a degree?

For many years, it was assumed that the best route to a well-paid career was to go to university, get your degree, find a good job and climb the career ladder. However, since the government introduced top-up fees for students, it is more important than ever to find which courses will give you the best return in terms of a boost to your salary.

Well, rather than tell you what we think, let's look at an independent research report by Price Waterhouse Coopers called "The Economic Benefits of a Degree". The report is only 16 pages long and is available here but if you don't want to read it all, let me summarise the findings.

Very briefly, the report finds that there are "significant economic benefits (as well as non-financial advantages) to obtaining a degree" and, on average, the additional gross life-time earnings are about £160,000 for a graduate compared to someone with two or more A levels. A more accurate idea of the expected additional earnings can be seen if we break the data down by the subject studied.

What this report found (in figure 2 on page 5) is that those studying Engineering can expect additional earnings to be about £243,730 and those studying Maths or Computing can expect the additional amount to be £241,749.

Both of these figures are more than 50% above average!

As you can see, therefore, opting for subjects in the School of Computing, Engineering and Information Sciences (which includes two maths degrees by the way) will put you well on the way to substantial additional earnings even after you've paid off your tuition fees! If you want a secure future, then it's very important that you study a programme that will give you every chance of finding a well-paid job you'll enjoy after you graduate.

To see the range of programmes we offer, click on the 'Our courses' tab on the left and explore the links. If you have any questions, just get in touch. We'd be delighted to help.