Go back a generation or two and some 10% of the population went to university. That there might only be 10% of that population who would benefit from a highly academic education was simply an assumption of the times. This did not mean, in any way, that there were no other forms of training. Apprenticeships, career training and so on flourished. In fact, there was a definite bias within industry in favour of those who did not have degrees: instead of those years in the dreaming spires, years spent actually working in business were valued. That attitude probably went too far but the reaction against it can, arguably, be said to have gone too far.

In the current generation the ambition is that 50% of the population (of the right age group, of course) will go to University. That 50% of the population will benefit from training and skills development is an obvious point, but whether 50% will benefit from an academic one another. It is difficult to think that plumbers and nurses need to have a degree: a serious training system, yes, but a degree?

However, that's the way it is and that's the job market as it is as well. Given that anyone even literate will nowadays being taking a degree, clearly employers are going to use this as the minimum entry requirement for ever lower levels of the organization. The importance of a degree then is now less what you were taught in the process of getting it, rather more in the fact that you actually have one at all. Without it you are extremely limited in the jobs that you can apply for.

One further notable fact about degrees in the modern age: it used to be that having one would mean a substantial premium upon your earning for the rest of your life. This is now shrinking and for some courses, some of the Arts, has actually now disappeared: a degree in Media Studies, just as an example, has been shown to increase your income by less than three years of work experience.

However, if you don't have a degree all is not lost. The recruitment consultants at Talisman are aware of the way in which the degree itself has just become a credential, something part of the boilerplate of the job advertisement. If you have a compelling story, a reason (say, military experience, three years working in a leper colony, whatever) for not having a degree this can, nowadays when degrees are ten pence a dozen, be just as useful.