10th February 2011 9:00
By Blue Tutors
As the row over tuition fees continues, a concern has emerged regarding the type of subject that the government might be encouraging students to choose. The general message of the new system is that students should have to pay much more of the cost of their course, and that this should make students think about the actual value their degree has in the marketplace once they have graduated. The worry is that this message discourages less ‘economic’ degree subjects, which traditionally includes the arts.
On the one hand, it seems like a reasonable solution to the higher education funding problem: ask students to pay higher tuition fees, but only after they have graduated and are earning more than £21,000 a year. This should result in students considering whether their degree is worth £9,000 a year, and deciding not to continue with a course if it doesn’t add the value that is being paid for. However, it’s dangerous to being monetising the value of a university course, because it ignores the external benefits that aren’t realised in a graduate’s pay-packet.
Predictably, Mathematics, The Sciences, Engineering, and Economics are all highly valued by potential employers. The type of thinking, and objective analysis developed by those academic disciplines mean that employers are prepared to pay much more for a graduate in one of the above subjects, rather than graduates who have studied more creative, more subjective subjects, such as English and History.
It is a naive view to suggest that creativity and subjectivity aren’t valuable in business. Of course they are, but that doesn’t change the fact that graduates in science subjects earn, on average, much more than those graduating in the arts.
If the increase in tuition fees leads to a marked decrease in the number of arts degrees being taken then it probably won’t be much of a surprise; asking a journalist to pay back £27,000 over their lifetime is generally much more significant than asking an investment banker to do the same. However, if this will lead to less creativity in the UK (fewer books, films, debate, music, art....) then what’s the added cost to everyone, including the investment bankers?