A type of 'educational credentialism' has turned learning into a commodity, and made career choices more difficult, writes Marie Murray

The young adult today has many reasons to be miserable. The period of dependence on parents has been protracted beyond what is tolerable for adult and parents alike. Years of third-level study bring years of stress, while the goalposts on what are sufficient educational qualifications rise higher and higher.

As educational qualifications increase, minimum educational requirements for jobs increase in tandem. This educational "credentialism" has turned learning into a commodity, created a competitive exam system and an aggressive race to acquire more and more educational qualifications in order to gain access to money, status and power. It makes career choice and degree choice, post-grad and job choices more complex. Many people find they are unhappy in their study and their work.

A university degree, which previously was a professional qualification in itself, is now no more than a stage on the "credential collection" journey. This journey takes time and money and for many young adults it involves living at home with parents in the ambivalent position of being a dependent adult; a situation of guilt and frustration for all.

Even the excess of educational qualifications, eventually acquired, may merely provide a foot on the first rung of the corporate ladder. This is difficult when expectations are for high financial and business status. For those who stay in Ireland, disillusionment and discontent is compounded by the race against accelerating house prices, the acquisition of which may be followed by a long commute to work. In fact the so-called starter house is frequently "started" by parents realising equity from the family home, a source of guilt for many young adults.

Marriage, when it occurs, is also a more complex process and a much less optimistic one as couples make a life commitment that statistically may only have a life of seven to 10 years. Few couples in "commuter land" can afford to live on one income, and the fatigue of survival can become survival of fatigue when children enter the equation.

At this age, they are young but their "youth" is over. They are qualified but no more so than their contemporaries. They have been provided with a value system that does not value them, that rates success above life satisfaction. They are expected to be beautiful, dressed fashionably, groomed impeccably, living in houses portraying their flawless minimalist taste and with children who are developmentally, intellectually and emotionally on target. But for many it is their lives that are shrinking, their happiness that is minimal and the taste of so-called middle-class educated success is a bitter one. Where did it all go wrong for this generation and how can we put it right?

•Marie Murray is director of psychology at St Vincent's Hospital Fairview, Dublin