‘Something is badly wrong’: Robert Jenrick vows to SHUT failing universities in major education shake-up

He told Camilla Tominey: “I want to give young people real skills, not just low value degrees.

“I’ve said we should close the worst universities in our country and turn them into apprenticeship hubs.

“One in four of our young people are leaving university and earning less than if they haven’t been to university in the first place.”

Asked whether he believes in the “Blairite vision” of sending as many young people to university as possible, he said: “No, I do not.”

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He added: “My parents both left school at 16, my dad was an apprentice.

“I would not be concerned, I would be pleased if my children chose to be apprentices.”

He was then grilled by Camilla, saying he is in a “privileged position” in that his grandparents paid for him to go to a private school.

“You were facilitated in that kind of upward trajectory”, she said.

“You’re basically educated beyond your own parent’s education because you had financial help.

“What about these kids who don’t have financial help but don’t have high aspirations or are bright enough to get to university?”

He responded: “I want them to have all the opportunities they can access in life. But going to university is not the only way to do that.

“In fact, the evidence suggests the opposite. If a quarter of our young people are going to university and are earning less than if they hadn’t gone to university in the first place, something is going badly wrong in our universities.”

UK universities are in a difficult predicament financially after a sharp decine in international students, who pay much bigger fees than those from Britain.

Home Office figures, published in August, showed that overall student visa applications were down by 16 per cent between January and July compared with the same period last year.