David Willetts says disappointed teenagers should do work experience or an apprenticeship and apply to university at a later stage
The tens of thousands of students who fail to secure a university place this summer should keep reapplying year after year, the universities minister, David Willetts, said today.
He told MPs it was wrong for teenagers to assume the only time to start university was at the age of 18. This was the "Club Med" model of university applications, he said.
Willetts and the skills secretary, Vince Cable, were being grilled by MPs on the cross-party Commons business, innovation and universities select committee.
University leaders have warned that an estimated 170,000 students will be refused a place on a degree course this summer because of a record number of applications.
Willetts told the MPs that disappointed teenagers should do work experience or an apprenticeship and apply to university at a later stage.
"You don't have just one opportunity at the age of 18 to go to university, people can carry on applying," he said. "We don't want to get into a situation where the entire focus is on the academic route. People can do work experience and take up apprenticeships and maybe apply to university in the future."
Willetts said he wanted to ditch the idea that there was a "Club Med" model in which the perception was that it only when students left school that they could start – or apply – for university.
Cable agreed. "We are looking forward to a model where higher education is much more flexible than it is at the moment," he told the committee.
MPs accused the ministers of letting young people down. Rachel Reeves, Labour MP for Leeds West, said there were too few university places and youth unemployment was high. "What do you envisage these young people doing when they finish their studies?" she asked.
Willetts and Cable said they had provided 10,000 more university places than last year, 150,000 extra apprenticeships and they were working on providing financial incentives for employers to take on young staff.
"I fully recognise that these are tough times for younger people going into education, training, or the jobs market," Willetts said. "But, given the state of the public finances that we have inherited, providing more apprenticeship places and university places and incentives for employers to take on more staff means opportunities are continuing to increase."
Getting into university "has always been a competitive process", Willetts said. "For those who do sadly prove unable to get a place, there will be a range of options and they can consider reapplying."
Willetts confirmed that the Browne review, which is considering whether to raise university tuition fees, would be likely to be published in October.
Asked about whether universities had taken a disproportionately high cut to their budgets of just over £1bn, Cable said that while this was a "very large sum, we have to make our contribution to reducing the deficit". "The previous government would have been in the same position. We are trying to do more with less," he said.