If you’re someone who tunes into the slightly less exciting news cycle, you may have spotted the recent row between consumer rights champion Martin Lewis and chancellor of the exchequer, Rachel Reeves. Their disagreement centres on Reeves’s decision to freeze Plan 2 student loan repayment thresholds for three years - a move Lewis argues amounts to a breach of contract between the government and graduates.

Given that the extra cash raised will likely be used to bail out some of the UK’s deficit laden universities in a few years’ time, it’s hard to argue with the MoneySavingExpert.

It all feels like another tear in a social contract that is quietly unravelling. That contract was simple: go to university, get a degree, get a job. A house was once part of the deal too, but that’s a separate conversation. The outline of the contract still exists - graduates do have better employment prospects on average - but it now comes bundled with mounting debt and a weakening jobs market that is crying out for practical skills, not three years as president of the sports union.

Which brings us neatly to degree apprenticeships.

Introduced in 2014, they have exploded in popularity for obvious reasons: get paid to earn a degree, gain real experience along the way, and graduate without tens of thousands in debt. In their first year, around 100 people started a degree-level apprenticeship. Last year, that figure was around 60,000.

Critics often defend the traditional university route on the grounds of “career flexibility”, but this argument feels increasingly unconvincing. Employers will value a five-year, real-world CV over a final-year thesis on carbon capture. If degree apprentices want to make a career change, they’re going to have as much, if not more, scope to do so than University Graduates.

The final defence is a social one: university provides an environment for independence, relationships and personal growth that apprenticeships struggle to replicate. There is merit in this argument and, outside of research, I would consider this the best reason to go to university.  But it’s not a great indictment of our higher-education system that the strongest case for university is that it offers something akin to a well-structured gap year - at perhaps 50 times the cost.