Students pushed to university when ‘it isn’t the right option’

Better information on further education options is needed to stop students going to university and getting into debt unnecessarily, MPs have been told.

Giving evidence to the Commons education committee’s inquiry into school and college funding, Emily Chapman, vice-president for further education at the National Union of Students, said that a universal careers service should be set up to educate students and parents on alternatives to university.

She told MPs: “The sector as it is at the moment is setting students up possibly to go to university when it isn’t the right option for them, and they’re going to be in quite a few thousand pounds’ worth of debt. And I don’t understand why we accept that, that’s never spoken about and I think that’s something that needs to change.”