“To me it’s definitely still worth going to university – absolutely it is,” says Nick Hillman, chief executive of the Higher Education Policy Institute thinktank. “I’ll certainly be urging my children to go on to higher education,” he adds. “Relative to everything else, it’s still a very, very good bet.”
Yet the national conversation around universities in recent months has been relentlessly negative. Rising tuition fees, spiralling student debt and the financial crisis gripping many institutions are more than enough to give pause to sixth-formers currently trying to decide whether it makes sense to go on to university.
