‘I’ve £90k in student debt – for what?’ Graduates share their job-hunting woes amid the AI fallout | AI isn’t just taking away entry-levels jobs, it’s helping thousands apply for the same job with almost the same CV
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2025/jul/13/student-debt-graduates-share-job-hunting-woes-ai-fallout
Posted by MetaKnowing
24 Comments
All those bang average arts graduates getting spat out of uni and looking for a city job are going to be in for a shock. Frightening future given our higher education model!!
It’s a shame academia is not in line with employers and the job market.
We have some of the best universities in the world and produce a lot of extremely good research for a relatively small country. So why have we not got the high-tech industry to utilise these institutions and the talented workers they produce? It seems like with an abundance of graduates seeking work, it should be relatively easy to expand some of these industries with a good industrial strategy and that not doing so is a huge waste of one of the few things we do very well.
We’re incentivising anti-intellectualism.
Specialist research in medicine, the environment, engineering, tech etc is what leads to innovation.
At this point people cannot afford to pursue their interests or it’s simply not worth it and, in the long-term, the opportunity cost will be huge.
Editing to add that I wouldn’t dismiss the arts either. British film, music, books, theatre, art etc are some of our best exports.
>I went to university and applied to be a barista, and was rejected for lack of experience
These articles always have quotes like this and it’s like….why is this a surprise? A) they know you are using the job as a stop gap and will leave and B) a degree has zero bearing on your ability to make a cup of coffee and operate a till. It also comes across as arrogant and dickish.
It is bad for UK and EU graduates, it’s even terrible for international graduates. I wish they were aware and not spent 100k or more to come to study in this country, esp if they are from poorer country, UK will take their money, pay their bosses big bonuses and leave you for stranded.
If any prospective international students is looking at this comments, please only come to UK if you have spare money and want education from one of the prestigious universities. If you are thinking of better life and opportunities, you’d find it better to get that money and invest in your own or other countries.
Also, don’t fall into sweet words of agents, they are agents of universities and get paid by them, so they work for best interests of the universities and not yours.
All of those “Same-CV-applicants” will be disregarded. It’s like people who say “I’ve applied for hundreds of roles and got no interviews!”, all that means is your applications are likely identical and terrible. Recruiters aren’t stupid, a decent CV/Cover letter should be completely unique for each role you apply for.
It AI causes lay offs for those with jobs/careers. Its going to be shock to some who cannot transfer to a new job from scratch because entry level and middle end jobs become AI driven
Entry level work was already shit to get in or get paid for. Now the door might be shut for good
Massive student debts and zero entry level jobs has been a thing for at least 15 years now, that’s not a new thing with AI
Copy pasting from AI gets you the same results, shocking! It’s like seeing the same 3 word template CVs from applications back in the day.
AI has some good points, getting unique responses isn’t one of them. It can be used to make sure you haven’t missed the basics, it can be used to rattle off basic email to save you time. Applying to jobs or anything where you need to stand out shouldn’t be a generic form filling exercise.
If you’re going to do things like a PhD without a solid plan for what happens after, you really need to re-evaluate. If you aren’t spending time making the connections that will either let you stay in academia or walk into a career at the end of it, you’re going to have a bad time.
I do sympathise to an extent, but it is very well advertised at this point the amount of debt you’ll have at the end of it. Especially if you’re just doing it because you haven’t decided on a career and so going through the Masters->PhD route let’s you put it off a bit longer.
At the very least you should educate yourself on the salary you’re likely to have at the end of it – less that if you’d just got an undergrad and spent four years in industry in most cases.
I recently graduated with a First in software eng, with a year of experience on placement, and I still haven’t landed a grad job after applying for months. I feel for anybody going through it too!
AI isn’t just taking away entry levels jobs, it’s helping you write this article
I am the only one noticing the typical ai format “it’s not just X, it’s X”
Or
“This isn’t just X, it’s straight up X”
In everything you read, news articles, Reddit posts, even in the comment section of a screenshot of a post reposted.
Bloody everywhere.
Man, the AI scare is really over blown isn’t it? AI is nowhere near to the level it can replace actual people as demonstrated by some absolute howlers of cock ups when people have tried.
AI is not the issue, over saturation of degrees is, we have just hit 1/3 of the working age population holding a degree, 1/3 of jobs do not require a degree.
I am partly responsible for my organisation’s early career strategy and we take triple figures of grads annually. The issue is I can easily get 10 applications for every spot because it’s not just new grads but previous years that haven’t found a job applying.
Many graduates are going to have to shift into working in other countries where they’re wanted/needed, collecting experience where they can, and, in most cases, a higher disposable income that can allow them to live their lives in the interim.
I really worry that AI is going to present glossy CVs and cover letters that’ll mean employers start looking at elite institution students only, or ‘conbected’ candidates. The US has been the biggest nepotism work environment out there, but that’s going to change soon. Social mobility in the UK will vanish. Potential university students at anything below top 20 Institutions will also vanish, leasing to lower institutions closing down enmasse. I once thought the covid period destroyed everything. AI is going to do it.
Hasn’t it been common knowledge for 15 years or more that simply getting any old degree is no guarantee that you will walk into a decent career?
If someone does a masters in English Literature or a first degree in visual communications, what are they expecting? And the other person in the article has a PhD is some subject they don;t even seem to want to own up to.
University is a fantastic experience and it gives you some very useful life skills. But these days is costs £50k+. You shouldn’t invest that amount of money without a pretty good idea of what you are going to get back, and exactly how.
Why is this framed as a higher education issue? This a job market issue.
Post industrial British education has failed. UK should go back to Classical education like most of the continent. School/Uni should not be to find a job!
We got people highly specialised in stuff that isn’t helpful anymore while having huge gaps.
No framework to grow as a person.
That’s why people from the continent can come here and get 100k+ jobs easily
There’s an irony in people using AI to write CVs for jobs that are being replaced by AI.
…then should not have believed US entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley.
They’re finding out the hard way.
That’s the issue with sending everyone to university.
You need academics, but unfortunately “workers” in their fundamental terms are still required..
This response was created by ChatGPT;
>£90k in student debt? Oh, what a steal! I basically paid for the privilege of getting my CV lost in a sea of AI-generated blandness. Spoiler alert: “Passionate about synergy” is now code for “bot wrote this.”
Why learn skills when AI can crank out a cover letter that sounds like a slightly enthusiastic toaster? At this point, my job application strategy is just “pray AI isn’t applying to the same job as me.”
Turns out, the real degree was in competing against algorithms that never sleep, don’t need coffee breaks, and definitely don’t cry over student loans.
If AI is the future of job hunting, I’m ready to apply as “Human Experience — Slightly Outdated Model.”
Someone please invent an AI that pays off my debt while it’s at it. I’d even settle for a robot that writes rejection emails in my place.
I mean people wouldn’t use AI if you didn’t need to hyper customise each CV, cover letter and message to 16 different ‘company values’ and ‘job responsibilities’.
You used to be able to walk into a place and have a chat with the hiring manager. Now you need to apply online, which goes to a recruiter, that then goes to HR, who then passes it to the hiring manager, so it’s almost impossible to find out who the fuck you’re supposed to speak to.
Back to nepotism all the way. The only people I know who are getting on well in life did it because of family connections.
I mean there wasn’t really much opportunity for most of us. The internet never really meritocrised things. Ironically enough the US seems in some ways more meritocratic.