This is not meant to be an overtly political intervention; this blog largely tries to steer clear of these altogether. However, the recent “Tories would swap ‘rip-off’ degrees for apprenticeships” issue in the British General Election has, in various forms, been such a staple of the entire quarter-century that I have spent in academia that I thought it was worth offering some thoughts on its latest iteration. It came up again last week in the context of the Election, with a government promise to fund up to 100,000 apprenticeships per year as alternative to poor-quality degrees, and to give our regulator, the Office for Students (OfS) greater powers to close down badly performing degrees. For the first time, graduate earnings are to be taken into account in such assessments. Both have very important policy implications for the HE sector.
To reiterate, conversations about the “quality” and “value” (monetary or otherwise) of degree programmes are not a new thing. “Mickey Mouse” degrees have been a target for certain sections of the media for as long as I can remember; for some reason, “Golf Course Management” sticks in my mind as a particularly totemic example of these, which was knocking around in my youth (I have no idea if any such programme has ever been offered by the way, or which institution or institutions were supposed to have done so). Since the turn of the century however, the number of students in UK HE has increased from around 1.9. to 2.8m, according to HESA figures. It is certainly the case that the range of subjects available to study has, for better or worse, expanded along with this increase; driven no doubt in part by a desire on the part of institutions to remain relevant to the societies they serve. Whether any of these are “Mickey Mouse” or not is surely a matter of subjective opinion, but the introducing term “rip-off” implies a more specific characteristic, as a poor financial return on financial investment.
Two questions are implied by the idea of “rip-off” degrees being offered by universities: firstly, how could any institution expect to get away with offering such a programme, even it if wanted to? From where I am sitting, the current UK landscape is not short of universities willing to take the pruning shears to their offerings in the face of financial pressures. There is more to it than financial viability however. Students are not fools. There are some parallels between choosing a degree programme and buying a house (which, incidentally, I am doing at the moment). House buyers “do their own research” these days, with a plethora of data available about house prices (both historic and current), amenities, transport links, environmental factors and so on. The choice of degree programmes faced by aspiring students is the same. Most institutions provide extensive data about their programmes and outcomes already (although it’s true that too many don’t), and as well as this we have countless university rankings and league tables, less formal forums such as the Student Room, as well the mass of nebulous networks on social media where students and aspiring students comminicate, all of which platform and broadcast student experiences. There is surely enough information out there for young people to make informed choices, and we should trust them to do so. And anyway, shouldn’t the free market rule?
This is of course not to deny that poor quality degrees exist, although whether they can survive the rigours of today’s academic environment in the long term is an altogether different question. However, just as there are good and bad degrees, there are also good and bad apprenticeships. One does not need to dig very far at all online to find horror stories, both from apprentices and their hosts. There also of course excellent apprenticeships which create experiences of long term value for those that do them. But to set them up as as a whole a panaceic answer to poor quality in their HE counterparts is comparing apples with oranges. The comparison is culture war at its most shallow.
As noted above, it is suggested that our regulator, the Office for Students, should be able to step in to close “failing” degrees which. As some have pointed out, the OfS more or less has powers to do anyway. But even so, political parties (of any hue) drawing the OfS into such narratives is helpful not for it, for the sector, or for the relationship between the two. Last year, the House of Lords report, Must do better: the Office for Students and the looming crisis facing higher education, concluded that:
The actions of the OfS and the prioritisation of its duties appear to be reactive and driven by political pressures and input. While there are a small number of cases where the OfS has pushed back against the Government’s view, in too many cases the OfS has translated ministerial and media attitudes directly into regulatory demands on providers.
Given the importance of trust between the sector and its regulator, involving them in this way can only exacerbate the fears of political pressure which the Lords articulated.
Finally and most importantly: conflating the student experience and all that goes with it with the earnings graduates make on a degree by degree basis is both an oversimplification and a gross distortion of reality. Figures out this week show that students from the LSE are London’s highest earning graduates five years after finishing their degrees, with graduates of the Royal Veterinary College also being among the highest earners. In contrast the lowest earners are those of the Conservatoire for Dance and Drama, with the University of the Arts London and the Royal College of Music also languishing in the table. These figures are hardly astonishing surprises, and they say nothing whatsoever about the quality of the teaching on offer in any of the institutions in questions. The amount graduates can expect to earn on graduation is one of a vast range of factors, some to do with their personal situations others, as illustrated here, to do with the fact that (say) vets tend to earn more than musicians. That is not the fault of either students or universities. To suggest such a link, or that applicants are somehow being hoodwinked by poor teaching, is entirely tendentious.
Stuart Dunn 