Well, yes, I should clarify myself.
In no circumstance is any kind of degree 'necessary' or 'essential'. A job can be achieved completely without any kind of degree whatsoever, if you have the wit, and skill.
That is correct, except if you want to become a doctor, or a lawyer, or a engineer I suppose? There are many jobs that can be achieved without a degree, and that is very much a possibility. But I don't suppose that it's quite the "probability". YOU are sitting there in an apprenticeship. You and five others out of, how many, 1000 applicants? Perhaps many of them were like you and they wanted to do the very same job you are doing now. But what about the rest of us? Is a university degree worth it for most people?
I would say yes. Let's start by considering the numbers. According to the OECD (
here), over 60% of young people in the OECD are expected to enter university-level education during their lifetime. University-level education appears to be available to most people. So even before we discuss its benefits, we can establish it's something clearly available for the masses. On the other hand, an average of 17% of young adults in the OECD are expected to enter vocational-training programs such as your own. So while getting a job through an apprenticeship worked out for you, it wouldn't be a realistic option for most people, relative to getting a university degree.
Bachelor's degrees also have higher earning potential throughout their lives:
here for example, and
here. Also it teaches you other things which John Green talks about and might be addressed in my other thread
here. But let's just stay here with the economics: on average, Bachelor's degree holders earn more over their lifetimes (and have access to more jobs, and hence a better chance of finding something you want) and that makes a university education worth it because most people would be able to end up paying off the debt.
A university degree is not necessary to get a job. That statement is true. People are capable of getting fulfilling jobs without a university degree, that is also true. But let's go back to the OP and discuss whether it's worth it. It's not necessary for
every job, but like Nah points out, it's necessary for
many jobs, especially those which tend to pay more (and they are many and quite varied). Is it a worthwhile investment to obtain something that, while is not absolutely necessary to get a job, necessary to give you access to more and higher paying ones? In purely economic terms, if it pays off the debts (which I have shown above) and then some, then yes, and we're not talking about the other benefits.
And I acknowledge that you've asked me to reread your posts and I have. I disagree with your appraisal of a university degree as a poor key for the reasons I have listed above, and I'll point out that the experience of you and your cousin, although undoubtedly successes, does not speak for the masses. In return, I'll ask you to revisit what I discussed about necessity and sufficiency. I don't believe that a university degree is the be-all-and-end-all, because in that case I would have argued for both its necessity and sufficiency; I argued only for its necessity (qualified with everything discussed above and in Nah's post). And just because something is less valuable (in relative terms, in absolute terms a university education (hopefully) gives you the same perspective and context it always has) does not make it any less necessary.
I'm not going to address that bit about a university education "throwing you into a lottery to be randomly picked against everyone else". That's simply not true, take flight's experience in this very thread, for instance. I don't see why gaining a degree would make the job application process any more random, that's a pretty strong claim.