Rottweiler22:
I was one of those, who because I was academically capable, the teachers and my parents hammered it into me that University was the only way to go. I’ve only just finished, and I hated everything about it. The culture, the course, the people, everything! The grafting your arse off, only for when you finish, every graduate job in the area has 25,000 applicants, and the only realistic jobs out there are low-skill, low-pay office jobs, or in a call centre, where every other bugger there went straight from school! I regret going to Uni, big time, and wish I would have either got a trade, or just worked my arse off for five years, to pay for some meaningful qualifications, like for the oil rigs or something like that. Put my supposedly above average intelligence into becoming a cracking plumber, or starting a business, something like that.
If you do something meaningful at Uni, like medicine, law, languages, stuff you NEED a degree for, and there are always demands for, then you’re laughing, but in my opinion it’s a waste of time doing “Logistics management”, media, film, that sort of thing, there just aren’t jobs for it. You may as well get a trade than do a crap degree, or just work hard from school and maybe be in a managerial position by the time your mates are graduating from Uni.
Or just shut yourself in a cupboard for 5 years. University is just a way of disguising the real rates of youth unemployment and the dearth of real opportunities, getting youths to pay for this warehousing on their own credit, and then at the end of it putting you in roles that brighter primary school leavers could fill.
You might get into a managerial position without a degree, but that is because those managerial positions never did require a degree, and they’re being paid at a fraction of a proper standard of living anyway (never mind a proper wage for a managerial position) which was the whole reason people were going to university (to avoid ending up as, say, a retail store manager on just £16k a year).
I’ve met team leaders and managers in other occupations who are on minimum wage. They told me about how their salary improved at promotion - but they didn’t seem to realise, as I did immediately, that the increase only paid for their routine overtime (effectively leaving them no additional remuneration to cover their increased responsibilities and pressures).
Generally speaking, you’ll only have a chance of a reasonable income these days if you’re smart but also of loose morals - a sharp salesman, for example, or a manager who can shrewdly and relentlessly cut the wage bill without causing uproar (or crack the whip and wring out more from people for the same pay), or a tradesman who can cut corners with cheaper materials (say, by using cheap inflammable materials where the law requires something fire-proof).
If you’re an essentially decent salesman, you’ll struggle to find work; if you’re a decent manager who wants to take care of people, you’ll miss your targets or resign in distaste at the moral compromises your budget demands; if you’re a competent tradesman working properly, you’ll earn less than minimum wage for your time. This is what market competition really is: forcing moral people to compete with the immoral, forcing decent firms to compete with the indecent, forcing those who internalise their costs to compete with those who externalise them.
A sensible thing to do with the kids would be to outline the pros and cons of the job, like anything else. They will soon come to their own conclusions. I can see the being on your own, lone wolf, feet-up in a lay-by watching a DVD being quite an attraction for kids, especially when they’re at the “hate mum and dad”, Kevin and Perry stage. The goths would love it! 
It’s true that there are jobs out there that you can get the same wage as driving for, but only doing three day’s work, but it’s no reason to ignore the possibility of a driving career. You never know, the kids might love it.
Well, if the kids start at 18, I’d say the first thing they’ll notice is that everyone else is at least 20 years older, but look closer to 40 years older, and very quickly they’ll learn the reasons for it. They’ll learn why drivers rooms are dank, grimy, and with more security than the post office counter - prison cells are cleaner, quieter, and comfier. They’ll learn the joys of starting work in the summer before the sun comes up, and finishing after it has gone down. Oh yes, they just might love it!
