Gen Z graduate with $50,000 HECS debt reveals degree she regrets: 'One interview'
A young Aussie has revealed her regrets about going to university as she's found her degree 'collecting dust' while she struggles to get a job. Many young Aussies have been questioning their decisions to pursue tertiary education due to their huge HECS debts and the difficulty in finding full-time work after graduating.
Aleshya graduated from UniSA in 2023 with a Bachelor of Design and $50,000 worth of HECS debt, after previously studying engineering for two years. The 24-year-old told Yahoo Finance she took a gap year after graduating and was now applying for graduate and design jobs with no luck.
'I mostly have been ghosted. I did have one phone interview for a retail store. I had an offer to do an interview as a graphic designer for a marketing agency but it ended up not being for me,' she said.
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Aleshya, who has applied for 30 jobs this year, said it was a 'difficult' time for young people to find work, even if they had university degrees.
'I'm from Adelaide and there's an even smaller amount of opportunities. In regards to grad programs, I know they are highly competitive,' she said.
'Sometimes the job would be junior but then they would want a couple of years of experience.'
Aleshya currently works two jobs, one in hospitality and one in retail, which she admitted wasn't the position she thought she'd be in after graduating.
'Going in, I thought, look, I'll work my minimum wage retail hospitality jobs and then after uni, I'll be making a big girl salary,' she said.
'But so far, I'm still working the same hospo and retail jobs at 24 years old.'
New research by job site Indeed found the majority of job seekers (67 per cent) and employers (55 per cent) now believed that on-the-job experience was more attractive than university degrees when it came to hiring.
Indeed career expert Sally McKibbin said the research highlighted a 'pivotal shift' in the hiring landscape.
'Employers are increasingly of the view that on-the-job experience has the potential to speak louder than a formal qualification,' she said.
'Higher education is of course still incredibly valuable and also valued, but Australia's job market is evolving and therefore so too is our approach to hiring.'
While design can be a hard industry to crack into, the jobs market is tight across the board right now making it harder for jobseekers, particularly those with less experience and skills to leverage.
Australia's unemployment rate edged higher to 4.1 per cent in January, up from 4 per cent in December.
Job ads rose 5.1 per cent during the month, the largest monthly rise since October 2021, the latest SEEK data found.
Applications per job ad dropped by just 0.1 per cent during the month, but the platform noted that levels were 'still very elevated' compared to historical trends as competition amongst candidates remains strong.
Aleshya shared a video on social media about her experience since graduating from university and numerous other young Aussies said they were in similar boats.
"I graduated last year too!! There's like no jobs," one said.
"Two years post design degree in the working world, it is ROUGH in this market right now," another said.
"Um yeah the same thing for me with my bachelor of psychological science. I have to retrain. Nursing and teaching are two-year degrees because you already have a degree," a third added.
Aleshya said she felt like she didn't get as much value as she had hoped from her university degree.
'I felt like I didn't learn that much because of the way the courses were structured. Sometimes you had to Google and learn off YouTube and forums how to do things,' she told Yahoo Finance.
She's not the only young person who feels this way. A survey by Hult International Business School found 77 per cent of young workers thought they learnt more in six months at their job than during their degree.
A whopping 85 per cent wished their university or college better prepared them for what workplaces are like and only 24 per cent said they had all the skills that they need for their current role.
More than half said that their tertiary education didn't prepare them "at all" for their job.
Despite her experience with university, Aleshya said she thinks higher education can still be valuable for other Aussies.
'I do think going to university is valuable because I value education and I value learning. I do believe that you are helping yourself for your future,' she said.
Aleshya said she was continuing to apply for grad jobs and has been sharing her journey building her portfolio online, which she hopes will help her turn her 'dream career into a reality'.
'Your university degree isn't going to define what you can and can't do. I think it's how you build on everything else in your life,' she said.Sign in to access your portfolio
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