Degrees no longer hold key to success in Spain 06/05/2008 00:00

New research shows that having a university degree is no longer as valuable asset as it once was.

6 May 2008

MADRID - Having a university degree is no longer as valuable an asset as it once was, and especially not in Spain, new research shows.

An Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) study found that Spaniards receive less long-term career benefits from higher education than counterparts in most of the other 21 industrialised nations it surveyed.

The difference between how easily high school leavers and their university-educated peers find a job, their salaries and their pensions is the smallest among the countries studied.

Around 30 percent of people with a university degree in Spain can only find work below their level of qualification, often on short-term contracts.

Experts say that part of the problem is that the Spanish job market has not kept pace with the large numbers of people graduating with degrees.

[El Pais / J. A. Aunion / Expatica]