1
00:00:00,120 --> 00:00:02,880
Speaker 1: Possibly your first eye opening stat of the new year.

2
00:00:02,960 --> 00:00:05,280
Speaker 1: Turns out we're quite well educated and qualified. New Data

3
00:00:05,320 --> 00:00:08,399
Speaker 1: has got thirty nine percent of US aged in twenty

4
00:00:08,400 --> 00:00:11,360
Speaker 1: five and sixty four holding a bachelor's degree or higher,

5
00:00:11,400 --> 00:00:14,120
Speaker 1: which is up seventeen percent over the past twenty years.

6
00:00:14,800 --> 00:00:17,560
Speaker 1: Tertiary diploma or certificate qualification is not quite as much.

7
00:00:17,640 --> 00:00:20,400
Speaker 1: That's fallen from forty percent to twenty seven percent. They

8
00:00:20,440 --> 00:00:22,640
Speaker 1: think the covid ere a studying the strong migration as

9
00:00:22,720 --> 00:00:25,080
Speaker 1: part of the story. Anyway, Chris Wheeliam's the chief executive

10
00:00:25,120 --> 00:00:27,960
Speaker 1: of Course of Universities New Zealand And is back with us. Chris,

11
00:00:28,040 --> 00:00:31,120
Speaker 1: good morning, Good morning. Is thirty nine percent a good number?

12
00:00:32,080 --> 00:00:37,120
Speaker 2: Well, actually, no, we're actually lagging behind most other sort

13
00:00:37,120 --> 00:00:40,240
Speaker 2: of comparable countries. So you compare the thirty nine percent

14
00:00:40,280 --> 00:00:44,200
Speaker 2: with about sixty five percent of Canada, about fifty four

15
00:00:44,240 --> 00:00:47,560
Speaker 2: percent for both the United Kingdom and Australia, and about

16
00:00:47,600 --> 00:00:52,040
Speaker 2: fifty percent for the United States. We're probably lagging behind

17
00:00:52,560 --> 00:00:55,400
Speaker 2: an international trend which every country's gone through over the

18
00:00:55,480 --> 00:00:59,400
Speaker 2: last thirty years of educating their population as their workforces

19
00:00:59,400 --> 00:01:01,520
Speaker 2: have changed become much more knowledge worker based.

20
00:01:01,760 --> 00:01:05,600
Speaker 1: Wow, so is that a cultural thing? I mean, is

21
00:01:05,600 --> 00:01:08,319
Speaker 1: it we just don't value higher education the way other

22
00:01:08,360 --> 00:01:09,680
Speaker 1: countries do, or is it more than that.

23
00:01:10,480 --> 00:01:12,959
Speaker 2: Well, it's hard to tell. I mean, I think, you know,

24
00:01:12,959 --> 00:01:15,240
Speaker 2: at the end of the day, people are rational, they

25
00:01:15,240 --> 00:01:17,840
Speaker 2: will follow where the jobs are. And I think the

26
00:01:17,880 --> 00:01:21,240
Speaker 2: new zendand economy, you know, hasn't developed, perhaps as quickly

27
00:01:21,240 --> 00:01:25,440
Speaker 2: as some other economies have. But in saying that, something

28
00:01:25,520 --> 00:01:28,520
Speaker 2: like almost two thirds of all jobs now, according to

29
00:01:28,600 --> 00:01:32,520
Speaker 2: the twenty twenty three census, now basically require at least

30
00:01:32,680 --> 00:01:36,000
Speaker 2: two years of some kind of post school education or

31
00:01:36,000 --> 00:01:38,000
Speaker 2: training if you want to get a serious look and

32
00:01:38,040 --> 00:01:39,399
Speaker 2: as a young person, do we.

33
00:01:39,560 --> 00:01:42,280
Speaker 1: Know how many people who have a degree actually use it?

34
00:01:43,319 --> 00:01:46,560
Speaker 2: Pretty much all of them. So we compare very well

35
00:01:46,560 --> 00:01:50,040
Speaker 2: by international standards for what's kind of called unde employment.

36
00:01:50,480 --> 00:01:52,760
Speaker 2: It's only about one or two percent end up, you know,

37
00:01:52,800 --> 00:01:56,280
Speaker 2: significantly underemployed doing jobs that you know, they really just

38
00:01:56,280 --> 00:01:57,240
Speaker 2: didn't need a degree for.

39
00:01:57,680 --> 00:02:00,000
Speaker 1: Okay, is this a trend in any way shape or

40
00:02:00,280 --> 00:02:01,880
Speaker 1: do you think are we going to be on the

41
00:02:01,920 --> 00:02:03,320
Speaker 1: improve or we don't know.

42
00:02:04,240 --> 00:02:08,680
Speaker 2: Hard to tell. So things like the postgraduate qualifications, we're

43
00:02:08,680 --> 00:02:12,320
Speaker 2: below half of the OECD average, with just seven percent

44
00:02:12,600 --> 00:02:16,160
Speaker 2: of our population with a postgraduate degree versus the OECD

45
00:02:16,240 --> 00:02:19,720
Speaker 2: average of fifteen percent. The fact is every developed economy

46
00:02:19,800 --> 00:02:24,560
Speaker 2: needs knowledge workers, people with education and skills. So my

47
00:02:24,600 --> 00:02:26,640
Speaker 2: feeling is we'll see more. I just don't know how

48
00:02:26,720 --> 00:02:27,160
Speaker 2: much more.

49
00:02:27,280 --> 00:02:29,399
Speaker 1: What's the postgrad thing? Is that money? Is it money

50
00:02:29,440 --> 00:02:30,360
Speaker 1: associated or not?

51
00:02:31,120 --> 00:02:33,680
Speaker 2: A lot of it comes down to things like student allowances,

52
00:02:33,960 --> 00:02:36,840
Speaker 2: so these Other's one of the few countries that doesn't

53
00:02:36,880 --> 00:02:40,720
Speaker 2: provide support for people doing postgraduates qualifications. So once we've

54
00:02:40,720 --> 00:02:43,920
Speaker 2: had about five years of allowances, they run out, which

55
00:02:43,960 --> 00:02:46,200
Speaker 2: makes it a lot less attractive to go and do

56
00:02:46,280 --> 00:02:50,880
Speaker 2: things like masters or PhD qualifications. After a point, I

57
00:02:50,919 --> 00:02:52,640
Speaker 2: think we just need to be investing a little bit

58
00:02:52,639 --> 00:02:55,519
Speaker 2: more in our young people and developing that college economy.

59
00:02:55,639 --> 00:02:58,560
Speaker 1: That COVID thing, I guess, But is it valuable to

60
00:02:58,600 --> 00:03:00,480
Speaker 1: the extent if you lock somebody up there and change

61
00:03:00,520 --> 00:03:03,359
Speaker 1: their behavior, but they change their behavior for reasons that

62
00:03:03,440 --> 00:03:05,320
Speaker 1: you might not think, is that beneficial?

63
00:03:05,560 --> 00:03:09,240
Speaker 2: Was it? Well? There was an interesting study came out

64
00:03:09,280 --> 00:03:12,800
Speaker 2: of a UK think tink about ten years ago which

65
00:03:12,840 --> 00:03:17,239
Speaker 2: basically found that recessions were great for young people where

66
00:03:17,280 --> 00:03:19,760
Speaker 2: boom times were bad for young people. So why is

67
00:03:19,840 --> 00:03:22,639
Speaker 2: that because in boom times, people are more likely to

68
00:03:22,680 --> 00:03:24,960
Speaker 2: go straight from school into a job, you know, become

69
00:03:24,960 --> 00:03:28,440
Speaker 2: a HAMMERHND, where in recession they're far more likely to

70
00:03:28,480 --> 00:03:30,680
Speaker 2: go ooh, so there aren't many jobs. I'm going to

71
00:03:30,680 --> 00:03:31,960
Speaker 2: go and get a degree, or I'm going to go

72
00:03:32,000 --> 00:03:34,360
Speaker 2: and become a tradee or something like that. They get

73
00:03:34,360 --> 00:03:37,920
Speaker 2: training and their lifetime earnings are substantially higher.

74
00:03:38,120 --> 00:03:41,240
Speaker 1: What about the migration thing, So we were booming migration wise,

75
00:03:41,280 --> 00:03:43,640
Speaker 1: we're not now. Is that going to play out in

76
00:03:43,680 --> 00:03:45,040
Speaker 1: a different way going forward?

77
00:03:45,840 --> 00:03:48,400
Speaker 2: Look, I'm sure it will, I just wouldn't like to

78
00:03:48,400 --> 00:03:49,360
Speaker 2: predict exactly how.

79
00:03:49,600 --> 00:03:51,120
Speaker 1: All Right, Chris, Nice to talk to you is always

80
00:03:51,160 --> 00:03:55,040
Speaker 1: Chris Wheeland, who's the chief executive of Universities of New Zealands.

81
00:03:55,080 --> 00:03:57,960
Speaker 2: For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to

82
00:03:58,080 --> 00:04:01,160
Speaker 2: news talks they'd be from six am days, or follow

83
00:04:01,200 --> 00:04:02,760
Speaker 2: the podcast on iHeartRadio.