[user104658]

Originally Posted by Oliver_W

Exactly, you can resit your GCSEs and ALevels pretty much immediately in almost any college, or do an Access Course which can give you everything you need to go to university.

I think a few of my friends could have done with a do-over after school - they did BS degrees like Media Studies, or academic subjects when they had no interest in teaching or working in a field related to that degree. More than a few wish they hadn't wasted their student finance, and now want to go into nursing or teaching or other jobs which require degrees.

Spoiler:

For the record, I'm not one of those who thinks "too many" people are going to university, or that its only utility is to train people to get a job. But I do think people should think more carefully about what they're studying.

I can't argue with that, I started Uni for the first time at 18 and started over twice before I left at 23 still without a degree, and didn't actually finish up until my early 30's .

I wouldn't say the early attempts were a waste of time exactly... I had a blast, there's ALSO certainly something to be said for not ploughing head-first into full time work straight out of school, however it's definitely not what it's intended for and if I'd waited 'til my early 20's rather than jumping in at 18 I'm sure I'd have had just as good a time but also have had a better idea about what I actually wanted to study.

That said I'm also a big believer that proper study (philosophy, politics, history) has a benefit that goes far beyond career prospects.