Leading article: Job search

Today's league table from the Higher Education Statistics Agency showing that 92.5 per cent of graduates are in work or studying, or both, six months after leaving university is good news for ministers and parents.

Today's league table from the Higher Education Statistics Agency showing that 92.5 per cent of graduates are in work or studying, or both, six months after leaving university is good news for ministers and parents. It is good for ministers who have to defend expansion of the higher education system and good for parents who have to bankroll their offspring. But is it really telling us very much? We don't know what these graduates are doing at work. Are they training for useful jobs in the NHS or are they flipping burgers in their local McDonald's? Perhaps we should not mind. The fact that they are gainfully employed is what matters.