By Daniel “Dan” Miller

The UCAS deadline creates a familiar pressure point for thousands of students across the UK each year.

Students are forced to make a major, life-altering decision alongside hundreds of thousands of their peers, often with limited resources to come to their conclusion.

That is not a criticism of the university. For many people, it is still the right route. The issue is that too much early-careers messaging in schools still treats university as the default, and alternative pathways as optional extras.

Ten years ago, when I faced the same decision, my school’s early-career fair was dominated by universities, which is why I’ve spent the past decade working to correct course in our sector. It’s time we equipped students with the information they need to make the biggest choice of their lives so far.

In reality, by the time apprenticeships, degree apprenticeships, and structured gap years are explained properly, many students are already in application mode, and their choices are narrower than they need to be.

If we want better outcomes, schools need to move away from “Where are you going to uni?” and towards a more straightforward, earlier........

© LBC