And the debt! £23,000 a head, just for a degree. A degree which, as it turns out, doesn’t equate to quite the career it once promised. On this, at least, the country is united: my generation of graduates – educated, bright, young people – has been abandoned.

And yet. Why, when I look around my circle of close friends – most of whom, like me, are now 25 – do I struggle to make this fit? Almost without exception, the smiling faces in my graduation photos are still smiling, three years on. They have gone on to find jobs, postgraduate study, and flats (most rented; some owned). What’s more, they’ve done well at those jobs, slowly climbing the ladder of seniority. They are still small fish in big ponds – but they are growing, slowly but surely. None is where they were back then, when those photos were taken.

Is it because they are lucky? A little, perhaps – after all, it may not have been Oxbridge, but we were still graduating from a university most employers have heard of. Are they privileged? Not particularly. Some speak in the rounded vowels of Received Pronunciation, others don’t. Some went to private schools, most didn’t. No, this close-knit group is neither particularly privileged, nor especially lucky. What it is, though, is female.

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