In this episode, Alastair talks to James Stallabrass, a student who is just entering his second year reading Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Durham University. During the holidays James works in his local pub, and it gives him an unusually broad view of student life, work and the generations he serves across the bar.
James pushes back hard on the idea that there is such a thing as a typical Gen Z student. He talks about what has genuinely changed since his parents were at university in the nineties, from pre-drinking and the scramble to sign accommodation before Christmas to the sense that students are now consumers holding institutions to account for their £9,500 fees. He is candid about where the real resentment sits, why his peers are pessimistic about the graduate job market, and what he would say to a new Prime Minister about young people.
James Stallabrass Takeaways:
- There is no normal Gen Z student. Trying to put a whole cohort into one box doesn’t survive contact with an actual campus
- The sharpest resentment about tuition fees comes from first generation students, and it is aimed at the system rather than at peers who pay less
- Students now behave like consumers of university, scrutinising contact hours and value for money in a way their parents never did, and that habit is likely to follow them into the workplace
- Almost everyone James knows works over the summer. The picture of a generation on permanent gap years does not match what he sees
- Pessimism about graduate jobs is the prevailing mood, and he links the drop in graduate roles to the arrival of generative AI
- His advice to school leavers: only go if you want the learning, not just the experience. Check the contact hours and be honest about why you are going
- Intergenerational resentment is real and specific. It is about the triple lock and winter fuel allowance, and the suspicion that no equivalent guarantee will exist by the time this generation retires
Generationally Speaking Links: