How The Downturn Affects Students

Students are traditionally low on funds, but how will the recession affect their immediate futures? A report out last week suggests badly, with a fall in graduate vacancies. David Bowden meets the next generation reconsidering their career options.

There is a chill wind blowing through the campus of Keele university these days and it's nothing to do with the weather. Students fear the recession and the downturn in graduate recruitment, may mean their studies lead them nowhere, but a dole queue. Students' Union president Talah Omran Al Rubaie already has her degree, and will give up her union post this summer, but she's not looking forward to launching herself onto the jobs market.

The fact that, you are graduating today and tomorrow, you might not be able to get a job, is a very very scary prospect, I think it also has an impact on the students that have just graduated from high school, or leaving at 16, and they're thinking “Is it worth coming to university, is it worth getting a degree.”

In the Union cafe, student life goes on as it always has. But these undergraduates know the bubble of academia will not protect them from the recession for long.

Particularly over Christmas and Easter when you're only home for months, no one's got any jobs to give out for a few weeks.

My dad works for HBOS which obviously he knows, has just gone under,so that's a fact that means he is gonna be made redundance by probably at least an hour, and he was one of the main offers of money for helping with bills and he's used to paying my tuition fees.

As the recession deepens, some students find themselves with a dilemma: do they stay at university, continue their studies, and hope the graduate job market improves by the time they leave, or do they bailout now and take a job, any job, so they don't get left on the employment shelf.

Keele’s performance in the graduate jobs market has been good so far. The latest figures available show 95% of students leaving do get a job, but that was before the economy fell off a cliff , and the university is working hard to equip its students with the skills to compete in an ever gloomier employment field.

I think the important thing for us is actually to give them tools and ability to actually respond to the environment, I think our students are well enough, aware of the external circumstances.

It's been a long time since the degree guaranteed a job when you left university. But never in the living memory of these students have their job prospects looked so bleak.