It is Saturday night and I’m standing at the side of a village hall watching a big circle of 21-year-olds singing at the top of their voices to Elbow’s “One Day Like This” with my son “conducting” them from the middle. After all, it was his birthday party.
The mood was joyous, and there were a lot of emotions coursing through me, and not just because I’d had a few glasses of fizz.
I was enormously proud to see my eldest reach that landmark surrounded by incredible friends and his family, and I was sad about the various grans and grandads who were no longer around to be part of it.
And yes, if I’m honest I was bit wistful because I remembered how I felt when I was that age – full of hope and invincibility and the delicious sense of not knowing what my life ahead might bring. As Del Boy would have said, the world was my lobster.
And so it should be for my son and his friends too.
It was a beautiful mix: his old school pals, the ones who’ve known each other for most of those two decades, rubbing shoulders with the more recent ones from university. Men and women from all over the country, some at university or college, some who had chosen not to go into higher education and were working. They all scrubbed up well and it was, to quote Shalamar, a night to remember, and given the amount of filming taking place it will definitely live long online.
What a time and an age to be alive.
All of my son’s friends pretended not to be irritated at the 42nd time in the evening they were asked by the parents and relatives what they wanted to do when they left university. The question may have been predictable but that was because we were all excited on their behalf to hear the answers.
And that was the surprising part. The following day my husband and I had a party debrief and we talked about the conversations we’d all had.
Some of this group of bright, outgoing and brilliantly intelligent people were dreading the next stages of their lives and were even questioning whether they should have gone to university at all.
I’m not naïve. I know times are hard, and I’ve had enough experience of the dark side of life to know that you should never take anything for granted. And I’m also aware this is not a comprehensive survey, just a tiny snapshot from a bunch of lovely people who happened to be friends of my son.
They aren’t whingers; they don’t think the world owes them a living. In many cases they are the first in their family trees to have ever gone into higher education, and they knew the sacrifices their parents had made to make sure they could get the opportunity. They have worked hard to get where they are, and are not frightened of doing so again.
It's time for some honesty about the great university myth
Read MoreBut their level of anxiety of what will be next in their lives took us all aback.
A few said they wished they hadn’t chosen to do a degree, because they felt left behind by their peers who were out there in the employment world. Some said they couldn’t get jobs as employers told them they were looking for experience, not qualifications. Trainee schemes or placements were hugely competitive and oversubscribed, they said – one young woman told me she’s been turned down for 60 of these, another said she knew someone who’d tried for more than 100.
What about travelling, seeing a bit of the world? No, was the answer, “I need to start working, pay off my debts, and I wouldn’t want to let my parents down”. There was also the fear that when they got back, they would be even “further behind”.
The Student Loans Company says graduates in England currently leave university with average debts of £48,470, and tuition fees are going up again for next year’s intake.
These young people are keen to work, they will have great qualifications (quite a few are predicted Firsts) and they want to repay their debts. But they worry they might not be able to, let alone think about getting a foot on the housing ladder.
Faced with the fact that university graduates earn more in their lifetimes than non-university people – and that they’ve had an amazing time learning about and mixing with people from different worlds and backgrounds? They were unconvinced.
I don’t think life is a bowl of cherries – and crucially neither do they. And nothing could take the gloss off a wonderful night of celebration. But their insecurities and comments about their futures stuck with me.
My friends and I will often say that we love meeting our own children’s friends because they are funny, sociable, politically aware, and curious about the world.
I can’t help feeling that it’s a shame that perhaps they don’t see that themselves. We should get behind them, support them and understand them.
Victoria Derbyshire is a journalist, broadcaster and host of BBC Newsnight and Ukrainecast
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