Not everyone can or must be successful in high flying, well paid career terms. People of all skills levels are needed by an economy. The UK government's goal of > 50% university attendance always struck me as insidious. The option should be there, but we shouldn't encourage people who are perfectly happy to not go and who have other non-academic or non-career related goals in life (you'd think being a house mom or dad were a curse, a failure, or something..)