Lost Generation ?... that be nothing new !
That said, as one of an earlier (albeit voluntarily lost !) generation, minus a higher (some may say any !) education, one can but sigh at the life ahead for these latest 'recruits' !
Fear not, there be a solution... become 'professional' scroungers... like moi !

@Hova,

not everyone can go to Oxford, work harder or get over it.

I am fed up of people blaming the immigrants, they are the solution, not the problem! At the lower end, they do the jobs that people like you would never do (I worked in a perfume factory before I made it).

At the higher end ie nhs doctors, they bring skills that we need - the scandal id that third world countries such as india and pakistan are spending a fortune training doctors and nurses which we then poach! it is we that are immoral.

the government does not owe you a penny son, i can give you the address of the perfume factory - or the local chicken factory - they always need good workers.......

The article implies that there are not enough university places available. Wrong. The opposite is true. The universities are already churning out too many graduates with degrees--and attitudes--that actually make them even more unemployable. What's required is superior technical school educations--and a vastly more humble, more realistic idea of what a 'decent' job is.

OOh I wouldn't diss student loans that lightly if I were you. How else is a poor student suppoused to find money for housing, rent etc in advance if, say they get a place in a university away from home?
You middle-class people just don't think of those issues, do you?
Debt = adult responsibility. So what? Go get that degree, learn a foreign language so you could get a job elsewhere if there aren't any here and repay it when you can afford it. Is that really so hard??
Is it better for poorer students to NEVER be able to leave home or stand on their own two feet or to HAVE to work at 4 jobs at once in order to fund their rent while studying?
Wake up and smell the coffee, will you! The REAL reason why British students get into so much debt is not because they're given student loans but because they ABUSE those student loans by spending them on binge drinking, parties, clothes and drugs. Eu students study and work for a mere fraction of the money British Students get, still get into 'debt' but at least don't abuse the help they're given to put their lives on track and all of that with far fewer part-time jobs available to students than over here.
I know, because I've lived over there and seen it, just as I've lived here and seen what goes on here instead too.

No money?

This is about running a country not a corner shop, contrary to Tory propaganda.

Taxing the private schools and removing their charitable status will help (as mentioned in the article).

Changing demographics and the baby-boomer leeches are a real issue and sticking your head in the sand saying 'no money' is not going to make things better.

Due to thatcherism, the apprentice system of trainingg and employment became virtually extinct, and polys and unis were expanded to give these young people somewhere to go.

But time catches up on such schemes, as we are now finding out. You just cannot just cart people off to the dark corners of the education system, and let them build up a vast average debt, and not expect the chickens will evenyually come now to roost.

You reap what you sow.

The economic situation is harsh, but we are by no means looking at Hoovervilles or mass-migration as we saw during the 1930s. Each generation has its difficulties, and this lost generation rubbish smacks of lazy copy, dreamt up by some of our least capable journalistic minds. Maybe they should make way???

How do private schools stop state schools giving children a decent education?

I know of a good way to boost spending on higher education. Nationalize the pharmaceutical industry, giving universities and research centres that discover new drugs 10 million quid or something for their troubles that can go towards the funding of the university. Would also mean we could provide drugs on the NHS much more cheaply.

That probably won't provide jobs for kids who leave uni with a degree that is useless for getting a job, though.

From a students perspective, i definitely agree on one level that many degree courses simply are not worth it, and that unfortunately, university elitism does exist. I also agree that schools do little to offer other alternatives.

After I missed my Oxford offer in 2009, I was forced to take a year out to do some resits after little confidence in the clearing system. Let me tell you that there is a massive scarcity of jobs, that does not match the number of students at the moment without a university place, NEVERMIND if only 20% or so went to university. In fact, we'd have more people unemployed.

the reason why is because the manual labour that is available at the moment is given to workers who accept low wages, mainly european migrants. Professional firms offer little to take in school leavers, and even firms like PWC and Deloitte who have started school leavers schemes reserves their places for bright students who chose to work as an alternative to going to a top uni. We forget the masses of students who simply could not do an office job to a conglomerates standard but see university as a waste of time. Its really a catch 22 situtation which ends up leaving poor, disadvantaged students from poor performing schools in the dumps. The school I left was extremely poor in terms of academic standing, and while 30% of us are going to university this year, a massive amount of school leavers now cannot find even manual work, and are on JSA, doing nothing to occupy the space.

there is a real problem and that is the lack of unskilled work available. Once this is tackled, we will find more students being attracted to these kinds of jobs, rather than feeling that university is the only option to attain prosperity.

'A' Levels must be getting easier. A ten-year-old has just gained an A level in maths. I think it was 'starred' or exceptional or whatever.
These kids can't all be geniuses!
Over-the-hill

We could get rid of the 2 richest univeristies and redistribute their considerable wealth to the others, I mean the only things that Coxbridge produces are the aristocrats in power who placed in this mess.

Removing the charitable status of private schools will result in fees going up. This, in turn, will result in parents having to take their children away from private schools. Listen carefull now, the burden of increased numbers on the state school system
will increase thus leading to lower standards. Advancing ideological arguments against private schools ignores the role that these schools play. The recession has already resulted in increased numbers and larger class sizes in state schools due to parents being unable to afford the fees. How is removing the charitable status then going to help the education system?

In addition to my previous post: it saddens me that the kind of 'careers' which are likely to blossom at the moment would appear to be a whole army of debt collectors, bailiffs, and credit analysts feeding the DWP with all manner of personal info. Not forgetting budding entrepreneurs who'll no doubt be able to turn their talents to buying up repossessed homes at knock down prices.

Never mind the misery this will cause those who are at the receiving end of these 'boom' industries.

Do we really want to cultivate the kinds of personalities who get a buzz out of pursuing such dubious 'ambulance chasing' activities. What kind of a society will that make for?