British universities are advising graduates to claim Universal Credit as soon as their courses end, with some telling students to apply even if they are living with their parents or already have a job lined up.
King’s College London, Loughborough University and the University of Stirling are among institutions providing guidance on accessing welfare support immediately after leaving higher education.
The advice comes as Britain’s graduate jobs market has deteriorated sharply, with the number of advertised vacancies for university leavers falling to a record low.
King’s College London, a Russell Group institution, told students in guidance on life after university that they “shouldn’t feel bad” about claiming Universal Credit or Jobseeker’s Allowance.
The university said: “As a graduate, these benefits are in place to help you transition from full-time study to work, even if you are living at home or have [a] job lined up in a few weeks. This is an important safety net, which you should claim just in case anything changes.”
The University of Stirling similarly advises students that they “may need to claim universal credit once you are no longer a student whilst you seek employment or wait to start further study”.
Its guidance states that a claim can be made “from the day after your official course end date”.
Loughborough University goes further, advising students who are not immediately starting paid work that they “may wish to apply for Universal Credit”.
Its guidance says: “Universal Credit can be claimed from the day after your course finishes. You can start to make an application a week or two before, as it takes some time to complete the process.”
It adds: “As a general rule, do not delay in making any claim for benefits.”
The guidance has prompted criticism from Conservatives, who argue universities should be concentrating on helping graduates enter employment rather than directing them towards the welfare system.
Laura Trott, the shadow education secretary, described the advice as “madness”.
“Universities should set young people up for the world of work, not fast-track people to a life on benefits,” she said.
The criticism comes against a backdrop of a markedly weaker youth labour market.
There were 751,000 unemployed people aged 16 to 24 in the three months to July, 109,000 more than a year earlier. The youth unemployment rate reached 16.4 per cent, up from 14.3 per cent a year earlier.
The graduate jobs market has been squeezed particularly hard.
Adzuna recorded just 8,383 advertised graduate vacancies in July, down 45.6 per cent from a year earlier and the lowest figure in its records, which began in 2016.
The number of advertised graduate positions has fallen dramatically from its peak of more than 55,000 in 2017, although Adzuna’s figures measure advertised vacancies rather than every job potentially available to graduates.
Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, defended graduates’ ability to access the welfare system.
“Higher education works out for most people most of the time, but that does not mean that all new graduates are able to walk straight into well-paid work,” he told the Telegraph.
He also pointed to the financial gap that can emerge between the end of university and the beginning of employment, noting that final-year maintenance loans can be smaller than students expect.
King’s College London defended its approach, pointing to its graduate employment record.
A spokeswoman said: “We are proud of our world-leading employment rates for graduates, 86 per cent of whom are in highly skilled employment or study 15 months after graduation.
“For a small number of our students who do not have savings or alternative means of support, we offer advice on how to seek additional assistance whilst they look for work – as is our duty of care.”
The debate highlights a growing tension for universities as graduates enter a more difficult labour market: whether welfare guidance should be treated primarily as a short-term safety net for people between education and employment, or whether the prominence of such advice risks normalising reliance on benefits among young people entering the workforce.
With graduate vacancies at their lowest level in a decade of Adzuna’s tracking, the immediate challenge for the latest cohort is increasingly not simply obtaining a degree, but finding a foothold in the labour market afterwards.
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