No-one should take on something just because it's "expected".
Back in the 1990s rthe UK's Labour government under Anthony Wedgewood-Blair and Gordon Brown (their self-styled "New Labour") had a bee in its bonnet about wanting or "expecting" at least half of school-leavers to go to University, and bandied a meaningless cliche, knowledge economy, about to try to justify it.
Although the reports were probably exaggerated, all sorts of largely meretricious courses were concocted or encouraged - degrees in Leisure-Centre Management, Sociology and the like - but all that happened was a lot of young people having Degrees of little career use.
What the government failed to suggest, was life for all those 17-18 year olds who did not leave school with the required three General Certificate of Education "Advanced Level" examination passes in their chosen area, and trot off to university.
Meanwhile, trade apprenticeships declined, anything practical (apart from medicine) looked down upon; industries and public-utilities allowed to go into foreign ownership without thought....
The country has woken up to some extent, and all sorts of trades are now taking on apprentices. There was even a recent proposal to establish institutions called "Special Technical Colleges" or somehing similar.....
Err, we used to have them! Technical Colleges, that taught mainly practical skills and their vital backgound theoretical knowledge - e.g. Maths and Science - up to the "Higher National Certificate" qualification that approached Degree level. (Only Universities teach to Degrees and higher.) Their main use was in providing the backgound knowledge to apprentices, in a huge range of trades and industries.
So, no, no-one should necessarily go to university, and by no means everyone could anyway. By no means everyone can gain the entry qualifications or cope with three or four years of intense, high-level study- with only better rather then certain chance of a professional career afterwards.
So they do need the option of adult-education colleges that teach more vocationally, supporting all manner of trades and professions not needing a degree (or higher). They also offer courses in book-keeping for those wishing to enter administrative careers or run their own businesses.
(In the UK you can also study for a Degree through the "Open University" distant-learning scheme, and some adult-education colleges facilitate this physically for tutorials. Many OU students are older, laready with work and/or family commitments that make full-time residential university courses impracticable. The OU also has mature students studying their subject of pure interest to them, as a hobby.)
