New research from Friends Life finds that teenage girls are more realistic than teenage boys about financial difficulties. They also have a clearer view on the hardships of affording undergraduate life and about clearing student debt. Girls are more inclined to find a student job and taking unpaid internships as a route into their carer.
However young people of both sexes appear over-optimistic about the amount they will earn in their first graduate jobs with girls expecting an average of £23,000 and boys expecting £24,500 – against an actual average of only £20,000 for the 67% of students who find full-time employment within a year.
The research comes amid calls for financial education to become part of the national curriculum. A campaign to make it compulsory for schools to teach personal finance is being led by an all-party parliamentary group launched in January by Conservative MP Justin Tomlinson.
According to the survey of 16-19 year old students from across the UK, 54% of girls believed they would not be able to afford university, compared to only 38% of boys. And nearly two thirds of the female students polled (64%) said they intended to work both during term time and during holidays after starting their degree, while under half of boys (46%) had the same plan.
In addition, a greater proportion of female students said they expected to have to take unpaid work experience to secure the job they wanted than male students – 66% compared to 57%.
When it came to student debt, male students expected to take an average of 10 years to pay off loans, overdrafts and credit, compared to 12 years for their female counterparts.
The research looks into young people’s financial expectations after they have graduated from university. Other statistics include:
– 33% of young people think that employers will be less concerned with degree qualifications by 2020
– 59% think that the increase in the price of higher education will mean that they will have an increased salary
– Only 28% of young people expect financial support from their parents beyond university.
Source : Friends Life
