A University Money-Back Guarantee

Is a degree worth the time and money spent attaining it?

This question is getting asked more frequently and urgently as the cost of higher education increases and AI seems set to take many former graduate roles, leaving graduates unemployed and in debt.

For those universities that want to stay relevant and show their confidence in the quality of their degrees, a money back guarantee to employers for their top students could be a powerful way to do it.

The idea is that universities or departments would offer employers a money back guarantee on any student that attained a first-class degree from their university.

Any student who was not up to the job after 3 months could be fired and the university would repay the employer the cost of their salary and recruitment.

In exchange, the university would demand higher starting salaries for their top students.

Such a policy is a great way for universities to powerfully showcase their confidence in the quality of their educational offering, and places pressure on other organisations to follow suit, providing a clear USP for universities to stay ahead of the competition.

Furthermore, if universities won’t offer the guarantee, it calls into question the value of a degree – if your university isn’t confident that its best students would do well in the place of work then what was the point of the degree, and why should students pay upwards of £10k a year in fees?