Pay transparency is coming, how to ask for more & which degrees actually pay off

0:01Coming up in today's episode, we speak about pay transparency. There's a law that may be passed in the UK that means that businesses have to legally disclose how much they would pay someone before they even apply. This massively helps marginalized groups and women be paid what they deserve. So what is happening? When is this coming into play? But most importantly, how can you make sure that you're paid fairly until this is legally binding? We will be discussing.

0:25Soph: And we'll also be going into new research which finds that nearly half Australians feel that they are over-educated for the job that they have, leading to disillusionment, job and life dissatisfaction. In a fast-changing AI-driven economy, we'll be questioning what the value of higher education really is and whether a degree really has return on investment it once did. This is The Curve Weekly, where we read the finance news so that you don't have to. I'm Sophie Hallwright, ex-television and radio producer, sick and tired of not understanding the economy, money, how to invest, grow my wealth, so we started this podcast.

1:00Soph: And I'm Emma-Louise Boynton, writer, broadcaster and newly published author, focused on opening up the sort of conversations we've typically been taught not to have. But before we get into today's headlines, we have a quick word from today's sponsor. did you know generate have a team of advisors who will actually meet with you and help you make sense of kiwi saver you can book a no-cost kiwi saver advice session by the link in our podcast show notes and thanks to generate for sponsoring this episode of the curve weekly hi sophie first of all i need to know where you are but before you tell me that i just have to say your boobs are looking phenomenal can i say that on the podcast yes and if everyone if anyone that is listening and not watching feel free to um you should probably have a video mode yeah have a little glance thank you so much they look stunning i do think this top does wonders for me it's sort of like a secret little slit in the middle it's like it's covered but sexy it's very you know what there's nothing sexier than the suggestion of a boob without being a boob.

2:11Soph: It's like, you know, they're there, but they're just cut, you know? I just think you look fabulous. Anyway, so where you are currently in your really sexy, glamorous top in, tell me where you are. So I'm in Lisbon and I am here for Web Summit, which I've been wanting to come to for years. Like so often I'm one of those people where I see people posting about being at Cairns or being at Web Summit or being at all of these big events, But I don't see it until it's on social media or it's actually happening. And I think, God, I've missed it again. I've missed it again. But this time I was determined to not miss.

2:44It's the third year in a row, I think, that I would have said, shit, I wish I was there. So I was like, I'm actually just going to go. So I'm in Lisbon, which is meant to be sunny. And everyone goes on about how Lisbon's the sunniest place in Europe. I brought the rain from London. It's been drizzly. And yes, but holy shit, Emma, before we get into the podcast, do you know what I saw yesterday? What? I think you're going to be so jealous. Do a leap. I saw...

3:13Soph: It's got to be do it. Not do it. I saw the Elizabeth Holmes doco because it's out here. Oh my God, I'm seeing it tonight. I literally wanted to say to you, Sophie, I'm seeing a preview of it tonight. Were you blown away? Yeah, I was. I was so blown away. The whole time I just had my hand up on my mouth. I can't believe this is happening. But for anyone that doesn't know, Elizabeth Holmes is absolutely famous for, this business that she started called Theranos. Theranos. And that's the idea of like diagnosis and therapy joined together. It was for blood testing, basically. So the idea was it was this kind of machine that could take, they would get people's blood through small vials, like a pinprick of blood, and they could basically test for anything and everything.

3:55Soph: That was the promise of the business, which was revolutionary because historically, you know, you need to get quite a lot of blood taken. You have to do lots of different tests. It's all quite disjointed. So she came along being like, I've invented this unbelievable technology that means through one pinprick we can basically test for everything. She raised more than 700 million dollars from venture capitalists, private wealth funds and high profile individual backers. By the way, she had a lot of like really high profile people back her like politicians, all these like Bill Gates, like crazy, crazy old men who were just absolutely like kind of you know blown away by this charming you know super driven woman who modeled her business leader aesthetic on Steve Jobs so she was always in this kind of black pole neck it was a very kind of curated aesthetic and of course underneath all of it underneath the huge raise the massive claims was an absolute sham the technology was never there they were never actually able to test blood meaningfully the documentary which is has got more hype than I've ever seen any other doc ever get is basically the 30 days before she was due to go to prison Nathan building this documentary maker went in and was like can I just basically spend that time with you and get to know you so tell me did it does it because it's it's been so hype does it live up to expectations yeah yeah oh my god I I just do you know what it's like it's not a classic documentary it's a film it feels like a film it's shot beautifully the light the angles the way that the whole thing is put together it almost is not what you expect in the sense that you think you're going to get the answers of her Elizabeth Holmes is she guilty is she not and actually what the whole story by the end of it it's not even whether or not she's guilty or not it's what is everyone's version of what truth is in a world where we're constantly pointing the finger to say it's your problem or you you're the it's your fault here or it's right or it's left it's very black and white the way this documentary is shot and the story and what it highlights is that you will actually never know if elizabeth holmes is is guilty as crazy how it happened what but everyone will have their own interpretation and you're just sitting on the edge of your seat looking at this one thinking how the actual fuck did you deceive so many intelligent people everyone has their own version of what reality is she did not falter once it was the weirdest experience ever i just didn't know she was she was she knew what the company was no no no she was no no this whole doco is her is her flat out saying everyone's misunderstood me like i'm i'm telling the truth it's insane anyway okay let's leave this let's put a pin in it yes let's come back to it yeah but i highly recommend so there's a story that's coming out this is a really exciting sounding story about it's going to essentially become illegal to not have pay transparency and i know someone from the curve community so hannah m sent in a screenshot basically saying hi Rebecca can I check something before I make this awkward Tom mentioned his salary this morning he's on 38k I'm on 34k I'm his supervisor is that correct and that just captures in one screenshot what not having pay transparency the effect that that has in terms of reinforcing amongst many things the gender pay gap I think so when I saw this story I was like amazing first of all I don't understand why we don't have pay transparency because I don't understand how you're supposed to apply for a job if you don't know how much you're going to be making like that's a key determining factor of whether you decide to apply for a job so I've never understood that I'm like I don't want to waste my time applying for something if it then turns out it's like oh by the way it's basically free labor and second of all the only people that benefit from their lack of transparency and the kind of cultural taboo around talking about money and pay are people who are earning a lot and you can and the companies who don't want to pay you more so so let's dive into it tell me about this story is this like really good news like what's coming so basically the UK government plans to make salary disclosure and job ads compulsory.

8:28So it's not right now. You can put ads out that are, you know, managing director XYZ and actually not even put salary brackets in. You know, when someone comes up with an invention, I don't know, let's say the iPhone and all of a sudden you're like, why did this not exist before? It's so obvious that you can't even really imagine life now without an iPhone. It seems just like you said, absolutely insane to me that for my entire career I was applying for jobs with no idea what the pay was so in the UK only 51 % of jobs have the salary information and that's been falling 51 % yeah so 49 % don't say anything and so the plan here is for it to be illegal for people to advertise jobs without being really clear on what the compensation is yeah so the equality and human rights commission want to go even further and essentially make it where employees can't actually, like they're totally banned from asking someone that's applying for a job what they currently earn.

9:28And this is so interesting because let's just say a business, so say we were marketing, sorry, Luce, I'm going to use your job as an example. Let's say Luce no longer worked at the curb and we were looking for a social media manager and we put up full-time role, social media manager, but no, or actually to be honest, Even if we did put a salary ban and we said it was$50 ,000 to$70 ,000 and then someone applied and they were in an interview and we're like, hi, Anna, thanks so much for applying. And Anna's head, she knows that there's a ban there that she's applying for between$50 ,000 and$70 ,000.

10:01If I was to say to her, what are you currently earning? And she said$35 ,000, that's illegal for me to ask that firstly. because the thing is a lot of companies, what they do is even if they have put their salary bandwidth or what they're expecting to pay somebody, as soon as they hear, oh, you're actually on 20K less than what we've advertised, well, we'll just pay you less.

10:21Soph: Great, we'll take it down, yeah. And that's what happens a lot. I mean, I was speaking to a friend yesterday about this. So he applied for a job in the UK. It was a sales role. And it was up for 80 to 90 ,000. They asked, what are you currently on? And he said 70. And then they were like, okay, cool. Well, we'd probably pay you 75. And he was like, but that's like significantly less than what you've advertised. They're like, yeah, well, we're not going to increase your pay by that much. It was like, that's actually totally irrelevant. But why? It's not for you to decide that. Exactly. And the thing that's a real issue with this, and the reason transparency is really important, particularly for women or any kind of marginalized groups, is that if you start low and then people are continuous, like they're saying to you, well, what are you currently in?

11:00Your whole career, you're getting lowballed. Totally. Because they're taking it on that barometer of what is actually already massively underpaid.

11:08Soph: Yeah. And your early jobs, you might take a financial hit because you're like, you know what? I really want to get experience in this industry. You get an opportunity with someone. You say, okay, I'm early on my career. I have no dependables. I don't have a mortgage. I do it in a flat share, whatever. You can kind of cost up. I don't need as much expendable income now. So I'm going to go for the lower paying job to get the experience I really want with the idea that then with that experience you are going to look for other jobs in a few years time that are going to be a significant increase whereas if you are always having to declare how much you're earning as you say you get kind of almost trapped in that lower earning bracket so employers right now currently legally can ask you how much you earn yeah but hopefully that will change the echr would like to push that through yeah so the idea is that salary transparency so what the job would pay it will be legal you have you actually have to have it up there it's just like a blanket statement um yeah but also the idea of you asking what someone's currently on will be totally illegal basically what it means is that the people that this disproportionately impacts in a really negative way by not having salary transparency is firstly a lot of guys can excel or continue to grow in the way that they're earning so jump up in terms of being paid more and more and more and more with no real like cap on it so that happens a lot where guys like negotiate more they end up earning significantly more than other people because there's no transparency on how much those people are on so it's going to really stop like the leapfrogging through different salary brackets where it's then leaving behind people who should be in a similar you know pay bracket but it's also going to help people who are paid too little to jump into where they should be based on their experience and what job they're going for so the idea here is that particularly for mothers it's going to help to level the playing field and people who are too afraid to negotiate properly aren't going to be taken advantage of because you have to be really clear on if someone is qualified for a role and you want to hire them you pay them the same that you would if someone was bold enough to say I earn more.

13:19So the idea here is that it hopefully is going to start to level out the gender pay gap. And I think that it's super interesting when you look more globally because obviously this is not like a UK first. There are other parts of the world where they do this. So I've never been to Lithuania. Have you ever been there?

13:36Soph: Never been to Lithuania. Putting it on my list right now. So apparently it's amazing. Actually, Emily, I remember, came back from one of her holidays and said, she said, Lithuania feels weirdly safe. There's so many women and I felt so safe there. And then I looked it up and there's actually more. It's like, I can't remember the exact set, but I think there's like way more women there than there are men. And what is that what that means for dating? Nah, probably not great. So Lithuania is the country doing the best. So 84 % of their jobs now have salary information. Austria is second. They've got 73 % of their job listings have salary information.

14:17But yeah, there's a lot of places that don't. Like it's not mandatory in the US, the UK obviously. There's lots of places where it's not. But I think what the most interesting part of this is actually the people who apply. Because if you think about it, it's giving you the information that would either make you apply or not apply. And I think what's quite interesting is that perhaps there's less men applying for jobs because the pay is very clear. But basically what it's doing is it's meaning more women are applying for jobs, which I think is so cool.

14:50Soph: So women are more likely to apply for a job if they know what the salary is going to be than a man. So, yeah, women and minority applicants are 25 % more likely to apply to jobs where they have salary ranges up there. and there's so much research around this where we apply for jobs where we know we can do you know like 90 % of it but if we can't do 10 we're like oh no whereas it's a total flip for men so we think having the salary bands just give way more transparency on what's expected what level management or expectation is there it's just clear it's like we're paying you this to do this It feels insane to me that that hasn't been a thing before.

15:31But basically where salaries are put up, like as in if there's a job listing, nearly four times more people apply for that job in general.

15:41Soph: Oh, that's so interesting. So you get way more like eager applicants. But I guess that makes sense because if you have an idea of like, okay, I need to be earning this amount of money to survive. Like I just need that as my bare minimum. You're going to be quite strategic within terms of your application, surely at a certain point in your life, especially I think as you get into slightly more senior roles, where you're probably in a part of your life where actually you do need to be taking your income like way more seriously than when you're like fresh graduate, whatever it may be. So that kind of makes sense that you're going to be like, and you'll probably be getting, I assume, slightly more intentional applicants because they're like, this is exactly what I need and want.

16:18Soph: This is the part of my life I'm at. Yes. 66 % of businesses say that the quality of people applying for jobs increased when they had the salary transparency there. So it's like you're getting people that are more well-matched to the job for skills, expectations, experience, because they know what's expected of them. I thought it was really interesting to look at this information to see that actually it meant that more women apply for jobs. Because in a way, I almost would have thought that seeing the amount, I guess I'm just thinking about high-level jobs at this point. but you know for example a three hundred thousand dollar pay packet you would think most it would be a lot of men that would apply for that and think oh I can do that I can get paid that but I guess it's because it's from low level management to high it just means that people can see where they should be placed and what their value is and and think about it as a freelancer if someone said to you say I was a wedding videographer and they were like we'll pay you will pay 3 000 pounds for a wedding video and photos but i normally take 5 000 i can choose that's actually way lower than my rate my my work and my worth is five so thank you so much but no but you save so much back and forth if you don't talk about the the amount that you're paying somebody and you just look at the output how are you meant like both sides are kind of they don't have all the information to negotiate properly or to know if you should even have a conversation with that person so I think it's just crazy now to hear this and think I can't even believe this isn't legal everywhere so for anyone listening who is like fantastic I'm about to get back on the job market I'm going to be searching for a new role when does this come into play so they're basically trying to make it happen as soon as possible there's they haven't said when it's expected to come in but I actually think what the best thing to do would be chat about a couple of the key things that you can do without this being, you know, there's so many companies that don't have to do this yet.

18:22So keeping in mind, like, how could you show up to interviews, to negotiations around a job that you've already got to give yourself the best chance of being paid what you deserve and what is within the range of what other people are being paid for similar jobs. And I actually went back and listened to some of our episodes that we did with Meggie Palmer from Pep Talker and her whole thing is around how can we get more women being paid what they deserve how can we make sure that people are going into their pay negotiations or asking for jobs and being paid the right amount and so I thought it might be quite helpful just to do a quick list of some of those things and for anyone that wants to go back and listen to that episode we can link in the show notes the main thing is like knowing your value and you can't do that if you haven't thought about it in advance so whether it's applying for a job off the bat so you see something on a job listing site and you apply.

19:11If you don't really know what you expect or what you want to be paid, it's really hard to kind of like reverse engineer that. So if you're in a conversation and you're already going for a job, you want to know your numbers. So you need to know what is your like wish number. Like, oh my God, I'd be absolutely stoked if they paid me this. You need to know your want number. So like the amount that you would be totally fine to give 110%. You know you're being valued. you feel respected and that you know there's like a fair exchange there and then your walk number which is like there's just no way I would do that job for that amount of money so I think whether or not you are going for a pay rise or you're going for a new job really knowing what those three numbers are based on your experience what you need to be earning what you think you're worth is like really really helpful because it means that you can also ask the questions to an employer if they don't have those brackets you can just say hey listen I maybe it's starting with the wish number and it's saying you know like i'm expecting this can you give me an indication of what this role what is the pay bracket yeah yeah you go with your wish number what is what is the what yeah yeah what i'm expecting just so you know is a hundred thousand yeah what is the pay bracket that you had in mind for this role because i've i just want to get that off the table first so i know if it's actually worth both of our time continuing these conversations like big dick

20:29Soph: energy people want what they can't have energy so sorry big energy yeah thank you what we're channeling here oh listen looking at your top big boob energy like

20:44Soph: no i love that something that my friend said to me once and she's super successful and it was really good advice and it's landed for me she said that she has earned so much more and got so many more jobs than she would have done otherwise by being flexible with her earnings and someone at her like level and caliber of success you can imagine that like she won't get out of bed for x amount won't do it and she was like quite the opposite she was like I always look at a job and I think one do I really want to do it like does this make me excited and if the answer is yes then she's like the conversation's open second of all she's like what will make me feel like good about doing this so you know when you just get that you know when you do something for too little money and it pisses you off and you just get that like feeling you resent it and you're just like you know what why the hell am I hit you don't put your best foot forward I think I think that happens less when you're in the beginnings of your career you're like just glad to be anywhere but I think as you get more experience you're like you're not expecting my time but she was like what is going to make you feel just good about doing it good about being there and then she was like and go in and then be flexible and see where they'll meet you and she's like it sounds counterintuitive when you get more successful to still be able to be flexible but she was like honestly the opportunities that I have taken as a result of being flexible with what I'm happy to earn are just there's so many more opportunities and I really liked that I think that's a really good piece of advice to hold on to particularly as you climb up your career but also you know keeping in mind where you're at in your in your career but also in your life so say for example you have a young baby and you're wanting to get back into work and actually you want flexibility That is the most important thing to you.

22:18And you're happy taking a bit less because you don't want to put your full, I don't know, brain energy. You want to really focus on your home life and your family for a couple of years. And so you're actually happy with something that's a bit less demanding, a bit less pay. It might be slightly below what you would normally take. And by the way, I don't think, I think that there's a huge issue with this in the sense that a lot of mums will say, I'll work part time, but they get the output just as high. Totally. So I think there's a real difference here, but what I'm just saying is like hypothetically, what are you okay with and what is the level of effort or skills that you will be giving in return for that money?

22:58Actually, this podcast is a really good example, Emma. You know, like if you were asked to go and speak at a court pricks and you were talking about pleasure and it was like really not that exciting for you and you were going in, it was like, do you know what I'm going to do this? But it's kind of more for the money. Yeah. There might be a rate that you would pay for that compared to featuring on a podcast or compared to doing a TED Talk where you're going to get exposure to have your book in front of people that would never have seen it otherwise. There's so many different factors. And to think then that you're putting an entire job description on a website without a key ingredient to what is crazy.

23:35But I think, yeah, you almost want to treat it as if, okay, fine, this isn't legal yet. but in order for me to make a decision I need to know.

23:43Soph: I think even just having this as a topic of conversation and something that we're talking about that that people are seeing in the news also creates a cultural shift even before the legal change happens. I think you can kind of go in with a bit more confidence now in terms of actually being able to say I kind of need to know how much this is or not kind of I need big clear energy I'd like to know how much the pay is for this and then also back up to that what is simon stephen dayburn for a similar role and then oh really interesting that that's the pay bracket um i'm aware that other people in this role are earning this can you help me explain why what you're offering for this particular role is less than that are the expectations different you know like there's quite a few one-liners that meggy said in this podcast that i went back and listened to and a lot of it is i'd love you to tell me more about that decision or I'd love you to tell me the difference between why this job is that but this is not I'm leaving this conversation think about two things transparency and flexibility being able to be demanding transparency and then also being flexible with regards to where you are at and what you want but I'm gonna tune into that old episode because I'm actually really curious about her advice made me think as well is it really puts the onus on business owners to know what they're valuing and what someone needs to prove on, get better at, be more experienced and to be paid more because you have to be able to answer to that.

25:04If you're paying someone 20 grand less than someone else, you have to be able to justify what that is, which also is motivating if you're earning less because you know what you need to do to earn more. As a business owner, I'm like, oh, I need to be able to justify why we would pay someone more or less for something and feel confident sharing the reasons why, which is motivating for the other person so I think all in all it's really it's a really good thing it's a positive move yeah

25:30Soph: shall we move on to our second story which is sort of adjacent but it's like a little bit of a I don't know it's a bit of a tricky one coming up after the break there is a study talking about whether or not degrees are actually worth the return on investment and in the changing landscape that we find ourselves in what degrees actually are worth the money and which ones are not quite disappointing to see that both mine and emma's degrees are not worth the money but first we have a quick word from today's sponsor i used to avoid looking at thinking about anything to do with my kiwi saver account because i just assumed that it would be confusing but it's actually just so much more simple than anyone thinks especially when you get to talk to a real person generate has advisors across new zealand who can help you understand kiwi saver and whether you're in the right fund for your goals.

26:26Honestly, there aren't very many 45-minute conversations that could be this valuable in the long run. So if you would like to book a no-cost KiwiSaver advice session with a Generate advisor, you can go to the podcast show notes. And thank you so much to Generate for making this episode possible.

26:45Soph: So Soph, let's go on to our next story, which is a really interesting one. I think particularly off the back of the conversation we've just had. So there is new research that has just been published by the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia, which has found that close to half of Australians believe they have more education than their job requires. A dynamic often associated with lower job and life satisfaction, you might not be that surprised to hear. With a fast changing economy, thanks to AI and a rapidly fluctuating job market, the results really speak to, I think, quite a deep kind of moral, social question around what is the value and purpose of higher education in a kind of AI driven world are qualifications worth the money anymore if people are feeling overqualified for the jobs they're being hired for what is your initial reaction to this research and the findings I feel so conflicted about this because I think it's so dependent on the individual I know for me The qualification I got, so I went to the New Zealand Broadcasting School and I got a bachelor's degree.

27:51And it cost me around$60 ,000 New Zealand dollars. And I look at that now and I think,$60 ,000? Are you joking? Are you joking? That's so much money. I've never paid for anything else that's that expensive, actually. My point is just like at a really young age, committing to spending that much on education is a lot. at the same time what it taught me and the confidence that it gave me to go into the job market was absolutely worth it at the time but I think if I had the right support people helping me to know what to do how to behave I could have done I could have skipped the degree and gone straight into work I don't necessarily think what I learned at university helped me enormously with my job, although it's a direct qualification for what I ended up doing.

28:45So I think the only reason I would have got a look in or got those jobs that I did in the early stages of my career was because of my degree. So it's really easy to look at it and say, it's a waste of money. But is it because it set me on the trajectory that I, you know, got to do what I did?

29:02Soph: At a personal level, I think, I mean I think this is why this is such an interesting topic I studied politics my bachelor's degree I got a degree in politics and then I got a master's in psychosocial studies and I'm currently now paying for a coaching qualification which is separate I was like the last tranche people in the UK students who paid 3k a year for the education which is now students pay like nine and then tons more of their international students so my education costs nine grand in total which looking back feels like actually a bit of a steal it was a quite academic degree followed by an even more academic master's it was not equipping me with the skills that I would then need to go on to cultivate in my career if we're looking at kind of the ROI of the degree to then like money made after I don't know I was that high but what it gave me I think was so much bigger than just the you know potential earning power of a degree it really like it was the time of my life where I I grew up a lot.

30:06Soph: Going to university, I found people who really brought outside me that I loved. I began to really like myself at university because I really began to lean into and understand my interests and I became much more academic. It challenged me in a way that I think made me smarter, but also allowed me to appreciate that I was smart. So I just think that when we have a conversation about education, we've got to talk about just, yes, the ROI from an earnings perspective but also like what is education giving people like how are they growing up within that context if I look at my university experience I learned hard work I learned about deadlines I learned about how to communicate I learned about what the industry I ended up working in values I learned a lot but did I need to pay 60 ,000 for that if I had the right people and support around me to tell me what I needed to do and I you know maybe that's AI it's so hard to know if someone telling you that would have landed it in my brain and body in the same way that I did over those three years at university I think the thing for me is that I left university early for a job so I did about a year or a year and a bit of my degree and then I was actually offered a job and I took it and I did my thesis while also working full time.

31:26So I actually paid for a full degree that I didn't actually really do, even though I did it, but I didn't do it with the support of the university, if that makes sense. So for me, a lot of my experience and skills in the job market have come from experience, not so much from theory.

31:43Soph: Which at the end of the day, I think is where most job experience comes from. So just a bit of a context. the proportion of people aged between 18 to 64 with a BA so bachelor's degree has increased from 14 in 2001 to almost 22 in 2004 making it the most prevalent level of education so more people are going into higher education which you could say like you know that's kind of a positive thing more people are getting access to a good education like on you know net net we think that's probably a good thing for society the flip side of that is the data showed that 49.5 percent of workers that they surveyed, age between 18 and 64, were over-educated in 2024, meaning they held a kind of higher educational level than they believed was the minimum required to successfully do their job.

32:27Soph: This meant that they basically felt that they were, it lent them feeling kind of disillusioned, dissatisfied, and kind of feeling as if they were going into their job sort of over-skilled. Now, what they then found was that over time, they felt bored, underappreciated, underpaid, all the things you might expect from that. And actually, also affected how long people ended up staying in their job so of the workers who were overeducated in one year almost two-thirds are still working in jobs which they are over educated four years later so basically once someone was in a job that they were actually kind of over skilled over educated for it sort of doesn't really change thereafter they end up kind of getting almost like seemingly stuck in this job that doesn't really challenge them all that much and also and makes them feel like kind of bored and undervalued.

33:15Soph: This really shocked me. Mismatched workers are also more likely to stop working altogether. So about 11 % of overeducated workers and 12 % of overskilled workers are no longer employed four years later. That compares with only about 8 % of workers well-matched their jobs, which again, I suppose is unsurprising. If you have spent a ton of money and time getting your BA, because you were promised this dream of you're going to get great employment after, you're going to be paid, like go, go, go. Then you end up entering this job and you're like, what the hell? I spent loads of money and time getting this degree and now I'm so bored because I'm so under-challenged.

33:49Soph: Like, I can so see that creates such a disillusionment with work. Gosh, it makes me feel really grateful. I've never felt like that in my job, touch wood. I've never felt. Yeah, I've always felt deep in school. I've always felt the opposite. Yes, I'm, I've always felt the total opposite. I'm like, old imposter syndrome, imposter syndrome massively. It makes me feel really sad. I can't imagine what it would feel like to be looking at the clock every five seconds and thinking, oh, I've got another four hours of today. And I know that's such a privilege, but I've never had that. So it's never been my experience.

34:23I've always felt the total opposite where I felt, shit, I've got to really step up here because this is such a scary opportunity that I'm grateful for, but shit.

34:32Soph: Yeah. I mean, what's the answer to that? Because also when you think about AI and the fact that it's wiping out all these beginner jobs, is that a good thing then that maybe people will skip over more of the beginner roles and end up in something that there may be, it's more in line with their qualifications? So this is one data point, isn't it? So people are overqualified for their jobs and it's creating disillusionment. I guess that's like not super surprising. But the questions it raises are what value does higher education have in a very fast changing economy? if we're going to have to constantly be re-educating ourselves and doing new like skills acquisition because of how the technology that we're using in our jobs is changing so fast it doesn't really make sense to front load that education it kind of makes more sense having some form of education every couple of years but also if you're going to go into a job that you feel like overqualified for then it's also like why would you bother spending all this money getting qualified just go into more junior role and learn on your way up exactly A degree today costs three times more than it cost when I went to university in the UK.

35:34Soph: So people are now spending like$9 ,790 per academic year. And that's before living costs. And for international students, that is£22 ,000 to£38 ,000. In Australia, it's between kind of$0 ,000 to$14 ,000. For domestic students, goes up to$33 ,000 to$55 ,000 if you're an international student. That is a huge amount of money. to fork up. You've got to be pretty damn sure that that expenditure, those tens of thousands of pounds of dollars are going to lead you the place that you want to be. If it was now and I was having to decide if I spent on a degree, I think I would definitely question it. But the only reason I would question it is that I now have the education to understand how much money that is.

36:26And I don't think I understood that at the time. In New Zealand, you get student loans. So you're not paying for it out of your pocket at the time. And I think that that's such a huge one, right? Because if you have no context for how much money you're borrowing, and if you go overseas like I did, you then accrue interest on that money. But if you're in New Zealand, you don't. But the problem is that at 18, you have no context for how much$60 ,000 is. As a parent, if I had a kid that was considering university or not in the current state, I probably would say, it depends what you want to do, honestly.

36:59There's some careers, absolutely. If you want to be a doctor, you get yourself into university. If you want to be a pilot, anything like that. But media? I don't know. I mean, I personally would be like, don't bother. Get on Substack, hon.

37:11Soph: There was an analysis by Oxford Learning College which looked at 20 degree sectors. It cross-compared what the average employment after the degree was and also what the kind of entry-level salary was. So it gives us a little bit of data to understand, essentially, The return on investment. The return on investment. It's like pretty stuff. So the strongest were, unexpectedly, medicine and dentistry, which came absolute top of high-skilled employment. It had an employment rate of 98%, which if you think of today's job market, which is not great, a 98 % employment rate is a pretty, that's a pretty shiny sell.

37:47As in you do this degree, you pay for the degree, you're 98 % guaranteed of getting a job.

37:51Soph: And they had a median starting salary of 34K. that probably sounds quite low if you're somewhere else but in the UK our salaries are so bad that 34k as a starting salary is actually pretty good the next kind of strongest job spec was vets so veterinary science had a median graduate salary of 31 ,000 and a pretty strong ratio of degree related entry-level jobs to graduates and that was followed by engineering technology and had about 81 % high skilled employment rate so you're pretty high numbers in terms you're probably likely to get a good job after if we go down to worst degrees for earning potential oh my god there we find our degrees so that is where we find ourselves wait so what are the lowest what are the lowest return on investment degrees historical philosophical and religious studies were revealed to be the least desirable degrees to study with a median entry-level salary of 23k and scoring just 28 out of a possible 900 points in their kind of like system that they measure things so basically not a ton of jobs not an obvious career track that you get into entry level salary terrible what are the next sort of like less valuable ones sadly media journalism and comms come in as the fourth worst not surprised but i'll tell you what the sick worst was and this also surprised me was law so law came in at six despite growing massively but in terms of how much you pay versus how much you earn and also the number of jobs that are available it's a pretty undesirable degree to get that being said law degrees are expected to grow the most over the next decade with 147 000 graduates in 2031 which represents a 155.77 percent increase from 2021 2022 i'm absolutely shocked by that there was research done by i think it was by indeed which basically found that more and more jobs don't really care as much about degrees, which I think if you're coming out of university saddled with a ton of debt would be so disheartening if you're then going on job boards that are like actually what we really value as experience.

39:58I just think that the question has to be what is the job that you want, which is incredibly difficult. But think of you at 18. I mean, are you joking?

40:05Soph: I had no idea. It's not even 18. It's GCSE because some degrees will only take you if you've already done maths at GCSE level. You need to have an idea of the route you want to take before you're doing your GCSEs. Is that not wild? That's 15. So you're a child. I think by the time we have kids that are grown up, the question of whether or not they should go and spend money on degree will be very, very clearly. If you need a degree to do the job, i.e. medicine, all of those things, it's a no-brainer. I think, yeah, it'll be a much different landscape in 10, 15, 20 years time. We've already seen a big shift occur unsurprisingly but there was a survey done recently that found that the proportion of people who believe a degree is not worth the time and money has jumped from 14 % in 2005 so that was like kind of five years before I went to uni to 34 % in 2025 and a lot of people you know the proportion who believe those who go to university will end up a lot better off financially than those who do not has nosedived so down from 50 % so 50 % of people used to think that if you get a degree you'll earn more money that has gone down to 36 % who basically are like I'm surprised it's not lower I'm actually surprised it's not zero yeah my because also you've now seen so many successful financially successful business people who don't have degrees and most of the people that have the most money are those that have not gone to university I mean if I made a list right now it would be most of the most successful people in the world so obviously i had to google that on said list sophie we have a certain bill gates he left university after two years to co-found microsoft we have mark zuckerberg he is a dropout from harvard we have steve jobs who is also dropout of reed college after just six months although he continued i love this he continued to do to audit classes like calligraphy so steve Jobs was just on the side doing calligraphy.

42:07Those people who are still saying you earn more money by getting a degree are the ones that would never consider founding a company and probably haven't done that well financially, not to sound rude. But like, I remember my dad when I was young saying his biggest regret was not going to university because it really capped his earning capacity. And he felt deeply ashamed of the fact that he didn't do a degree. And he really wanted me to do one. It was important to him. It was important to my mom. And I really listened to that and I'm so glad I did it I am glad because I think the times have changed completely in the last 15 years 15 years I keep thinking I'm so much older than I am in the last you are 15 it's what I will say is me as a 20 year old little scared nervous you know girl straight out of school I mean I worry what I would have been like in a job you know and and it's so easy to sit here and say like all the most successful people didn't get a degree and it's a waste of time and money but I know that the way that I learned at university the skills that I picked up made me really good at my job when I entered the workforce and and will I ever be able to test that and what I would

43:12Soph: have ended up doing no I actually as someone who did a humanities degree I actually think my my I didn't uh I did not learn useful skills at university I would say that contributed to my career I'd say one of my assets and like what I've done is I've been a this sounds so fucking pretentious but I'm also saying I was like lacking in many skills so it's kind of you win some you lose some I think thinking critically thinking deep and being good at research has then ended up being the backbone to my career and what I would tell my kids is do something practical if you want a job that's quite practical just just do something and that could just be even extracurricular do everything around your degree that preps you with the skills that you think you might need for your job I mean the only reason that I was offered a job midway through my degree was because I'd done so many free internships to learn on the job.

43:59And honestly, probably those were the things that I learned the most from. But again, would I have got that opportunity if I hadn't come from New Zealand Broadcasting School? Who knows? It's so easy to say like, ah, don't worry about it. But I, you know, and I'm also a really good example of someone that studied something they're now doing.

44:17Soph: Yeah, which also not that many people have that like clear trajectory. one thing I will say as we wrap up this conversation is the thing that does strike me in this and I think has been re-emphasized by our conversation is I do really feel for young people going into today's job market because you have I guess a diminishing rate of return on many degrees not all degrees but many degrees you have a diminishing therefore value associated with getting a degree and you also have the as you pointed out earlier on a massively shrinking pool of entry-level jobs so you might say oh I really want to go and get loads of experience at an entry-level thing instead of going to university cool like who is hiring you because now everyone that's what those those are the jobs have been replaced by AI so that I think is a really hard thing to square definitely And I actually just think you have to be so flexible now with your career.

45:17The rate at which AI is moving, you just have to be flexible and learn new skills. You have to be constantly in university, in a sense. You're constantly having to upskill and learn. If you're in the beginning of your career, maybe there's nothing wrong with jumping into something that might change in two years, might change in four years. You're constantly probably going to have to move and shake around based on what's going on with the landscape unless you are something like a doctor. I just think if you are an adult that knows anybody who is considering a degree or university, definitely help them understand what they're investing in.

45:50What is the return on investment for that degree? How much are they spending? What do they think they're going to do for a career? Like if you have more financial knowledge younger, you would probably make different decisions on whether or not you go into that much debt for your degree. and the more that we can give people the understanding of what does this investment give you or guarantee you or not, people will be making a lot more educated decisions on how they spend their time and money. And I hope that if there's anyone either listening,

46:19Soph: considering going to university or going back into education, because I imagine there might be quite a few people here who are thinking about having a bit of a career break, rethinking their own career and thinking, do I go back into education or do I scale up in a different way? I think this is also like super relevant for them. I've actually really idealized the idea of going back to university because I love learning, but it's just, I need to reframe that and learn in different ways. It's worth thinking about how you can get the skills that you need in some way. So this has been fascinating.

46:51Soph: I've loved it. I have a lot to think about. Me too. And now you're back into the Lisbon Web Summit. Yes, can't wait. I'll report back. I might. Okay, let us know. Yeah, I'll let you know. Is it a week? Yeah, and I've got the opening night tonight, which I'm not sure I'm invited to, but I'm going to try and get an invite. Just absolutely go. Scale the building. I'm here. Turn up and say you've got an email confirmation. Wear the boob top and say I'm meant to be here, obviously. Exciting. Well, I can't wait to hear more about it when you're back. Have a great week. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.

47:22Soph: And see you soon. Talk to you soon. Bye. Bye, everyone. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of The Curve. Feel free to leave a comment to let us know what you thought. We always love hearing your feedback. New episodes are out Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. So make sure you're subscribed to be notified whenever a new episode drops. In the meantime, we're around on social so you can find all the links in the show notes. Hope you have a great week and we will see you for the next episode. Okay, quickly, the Curve was created to empower and educate you about investing, but we are not financial advisors.

47:50Our platform exists for educational purposes only, and it doesn't provide personalized investing advice for your individual needs and should not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision. and always remember to do your own research before making any investment or financial decision we're here for any knowledge and support you need but the final call is always yours and thanks for being here you got this yeah we know you got this