In the UK, the basic requirements for getting a journalism-based job right now are as follows:

* Masters Degree

* NCTJ Qualification

* 100 words-per-minute shorthand (which in the age of high quality digital dictaphones, seems utterly pointless)

Once upon a time, only the social elite could go to university in the UK. This wasn’t fair and people like my mother missed out on higher education because of the cost.

But all of a sudden it magically became free to go to university. My degree cost me nothing; £1,750 in fees each year paid for me, accommodation paid for me, plus I was given a big bag of cash to play with.

I stood up at the National Union of Students Conference in 2007 and said that I believed too many people have access to higher education. A statement I still believe to be true though undoubtedly many have already misinterpreted it.

With the exception of probably the top five to ten universities in the UK, you can get in through a process called ‘clearing’. A process where they give away places to those who didn’t get the grades to make it into their first choice university. Often these are just students who had a bad day at the exam hall but sometimes places are given to students who have not got the ability to be at university.

During my third lecture in the English Literature section of my degree, the teacher handed out pieces of paper and told everybody to write a sentence. Only 37% of the class could write a sentence. Unfortunately they couldn’t kick the other 63% off the course.

Entry into university should be based on skill and skill alone. If it is an academic subject then exams should be used for assessment but if it is a creative subject then a portfolio of work should be assessed. Then students should be offered places based on ability not the fact that universities can make more money by cramming people onto course who will pay for two years and then drop out, thus not lowering the grade averages.

Employers think less of degrees and degree grades now; in journalism, masters degrees are becoming the minimum requirement for those who don’t know someone to be accepted onto a graduate scheme and regional newspapers ask for junior reporters to have the NCTJ qualifications and then offer an £11-13,000 wage. An average masters costs £5,000 and an average NCTJ course costs £4,000 and both have to be paid for upfront.

Is it fair to give access to higher education to everybody when it merely creates another elite, the ones who can afford the next step up the ladder? I can’t wait until the day my children need a doctorate in journalism to get a position as tea boy/girl on the local rag.

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