Here is my problem with our higher education system.

Just before I started university, Tony Blair introduced a system that abolished grants and introduced student loans. Having been steam-rolled into higher education by my parents I was pretty bummed to find out it would be at my own expense. However, all I’d heard from my parents were good things about university, and while they struggled after they graduated a bit (mainly as a result of being new parents), they both managed to find good jobs within a couple of years. I was lead to believe that if I worked hard the same would be true for me, that getting a degree was the only way to get a good job.

Because of the loan system and unfair bursary calculations, I struggled through university financially. I fell prey to student debt in a big way, having found that as soon as I was accepted to my course I was on the receiving end of numerous offers for credit cards, store cards, loans, overdrafts… despite the banks knowing I had no regular income to pay them back (which, by the way, I now think should be illegal for the banks to do). I’d not been taught much about money by my parents so I’m sad to say that I took them. Which was fine for the first year, until the interest started piling up and the debt collectors came round… which is when I had to take on every part-time job I could find. I’ve worked in so many menial jobs I can’t even count them, bar work, cleaning, filing, retail, waitressing. My low point was working at Pizza Hut and not even being allowed to progress from table cleaner to waitress for 6 months, because they ‘didn’t think I was skilled enough’, when at school I was a straight A student. I’d be lying if I said all this extra part-time work didn’t affect my studying, it was hard to balance my jobs and my work but I had no choice. In the end I worked my ass off for that degree, and this was all despite being newly-diagnosed with ADHD (on NO medication) and having lecturers who barely lifted a finger to help. The lecturers on my course were terrible, despite it allegedly being the best in the country for what I was studying. I literally got my whole degree from reading in the library, I wouldn’t even attribute a single half percentage to them.

I think there is a general feeling of being ill-prepared for life after you graduate, as the guidance counsellors at university were mostly useless. You spend your whole life trying to get to that one point and then once you’re there they don’t know what to do with you, and are anxious to see the back of you so they can get the next student through the production line and get more £££. I was not given a single bit of help with regards to job-seeking after I left. Universities are businesses now, they don’t care about their students doing well in life or getting a good education, all they care about is making money.

What happens when you do leave is you find that the people that you looked down on for leaving school at 16 and getting a ‘real job’ are actually doing a lot better than you, and will continue to do so. Rather than wasting 3-4 years doing a non-specific degree and getting pissed all the time like most students, they spent those years working hard, getting on the job ladder and doing specific on-the-job training that was relevant to their needs. I was lucky in that I fell into modelling after I graduated, but not so lucky in that I’m probably facing my existential career crisis now rather than five years ago, when there were more jobs.

By the time my parents were my age they had bought and sold 3 houses, raised a 9 year-old, split up and got back together and split up again, and gone on to become managers and MDs of companies. Me? I have a box of cuttings and pretty pictures and a £20,000 piece of paper that I’ve never had to use. I rent in a renter’s market, paying extortionate amounts for a tiny flat with a gas leak and temperamental hot water. I struggle to pay my bills. I have zero credit rating and I can’t even get a baby toe on the housing ladder in my dreams. I have no long-term stability, no pension, no healthcare, no benefits. All it takes is one bad pay check, one month where freelancing doesn’t go so well and I’m out on my ass. I’ve tried everything to keep afloat, even working part-time jobs like I did at university. It helps for a bit, but it’s not a career.

I know I’m not the only one struggling through this, 50% of my friends are unemployed, and I know I am lucky in that my current job is quite exciting, I get to travel, meet cool people… but financially stable and mentally rewarding it is not. In fact, it’s the absolute opposite. The life I live - heavily in debt, teetering around the poverty line with no immediately attainable future - is no life. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. I’m not a fame seeker, I don’t believe in a free ride. All my life I have worked hard, whether it be at school, university, modelling, or in my haphazard TV career, and for what? For this? This can’t be my life.

The thing is, now that I’ve decided I want a proper career I feel like I’ve missed the boat.

I don’t even know where to start.