"The government has said it wants there to be a cap on the number of students who study so-called "rip-off" university degrees. The limits will be imposed on courses that have high dropout rates or a low proportion of graduates getting a professional job."
The PM was quoted as saying: 'They're (students) being taken advantage of with low-quality courses that don't lead to a job that makes it worth it, leaving them financially worse off. That's what we're clamping down on today."Now, it does not take much thought to see that terms like "rip-off", "low-quality" and "Mickey Mouse courses" are vague and conceal more than they reveal. The government themselves do not appear to be clear on what they mean, as was shown in a remarkable Good Morning Britain interview of the minister seen above: Robert Halfon. Tory politicians are prone to making themselves look stupid, but this interview is a classic, and I recommend it for watching (click on the link). He could not define a "good job", a "Mickey Mouse degree" or a "Rip-Off course". Under exemplary questioning by Susannah Reid and Richard Madeley, Mr Halfoff made a complete prat of himself. Even the Spectator commented adversely on his dismal performance:
"In an interview on Good Morning Britain, higher education minister Robert Halfon couldn’t name a single degree, salary threshold or ‘good job’ against which the criteria for a ‘Mickey Mouse’ degree could be set."The article continues:
"Studying law – a more vocational, supposedly ‘employable’ degree – at the University of Wolverhampton is not necessarily a ‘better’ idea than studying philosophy at Durham: the former has a progression rate of only 56 per cent. According to OFS, only 35 per cent of graduates who study Computing at London Metropolitan University ‘proceed’ to a positive graduate destination, and yet you rarely hear Computing being called a ‘Mickey Mouse’ degree."This whole government "initiative" is nothing more than an attack upon social sciences, humanities and the arts, despite 58% of FTSE executives having degrees in those academic areas. And of course...as in many things, there is a good deal of Tory hypocrisy involved - in this case quite blatant. Boris Johnson gained a degree in Greek and Latin Studies (" Literae Humaniores"). Penny Mordaunt has a degree in Philosophy, while Tom Tugendhat has a degree in Theology. None of these degrees have a vocational or "practical" application; they don't prepare you for the world of high finance or train you how to lay bricks. And yet these three Conservative politicians (as well as others) have become stars in the political firmament (to our cost, but you get the picture). Robert Halfwit, the star performer on breakfast TV, has a degree in Politics and an MA in Russian and Eastern European Politics - hardly entrepreneurial qualifications.
While it is amusing to ridicule this latest Tory folly, I believe that there is an underlying populist attitude to which they are seeking to appeal. This is the pub loudmouth/white van man/Daily Mail reader prejudice against the arts, humanities and social sciences ("all bloody waffle"), which, on a political level, leads to a demand for more "practical" courses - in other words, turning universities into glorified occupational training centres. According to this view ( still extant ) there is too much of what they call "theory".
Discerning readers will guess correctly that holders of this view have similarly unenlightened views on immigration, social care and Brexit.
This "view", which 19th century thinkers would describe as "Philistinism", despises culture, art and the love of learning for its own sake. But it has a significant weakness. Suppose, for example, in any given year, our universities produce 1500 graduates in (say) Sports Centre Management. Yet, in the whole of the UK, there are only 300 vacancies for these graduates. That means 1200 unemployable Sports Centre Management graduates, possessed of skills that are of no value anywhere else.
Philistinism, espoused by so many "practical" people, is theoretically unsound, as is this latest Tory government folly.
Facebook comment by Have I Got News For You.
I did a four-year Bachelor of Education (a teaching degree) and 15 months later was on the dole after two temporary teaching jobs. After another 1-year temporary job in social services, I ended up being permanently employed in the civil service three years after I graduated. According to Robert Halfon's definition (a good job after 15 months), I must have been on a Mickey Mouse course. This is of course utter rubbish: I couldn't get a permanent teaching job simply because there were too many new teaching graduates for the number of vacancies available.
ReplyDeleteA degree doesn't have to be vocational. Employers may judge that the ability to obtain one is in itself evidence of an ability to learn a new role, irrespective of whether the subject matter of the qualification relates to the job. In my case, my teaching degree in English and History was enough for me to enter the civil service at a higher grade than I would have done without it. There is also the point that not everyone measures personal success by the size of the pay packet - job satisfaction doesn't always lead to high salaries, as I'm sure many NHS staff could confirm..
I have long held the view that the reason why tuition fees and student loans were introduced was because it was felt that too many candidates from the working class were receiving higher education but were not necessarily adopting the mindset, attitudes and aspirations of the middle classes, which I expect some politicians regarded as rank ingratitude. In other words, I consider their real purpose was nothing to do with affordability, but was intended to discourage working class applicants to degree courses. I believe this new load of incoherent nonsense is, behind all the waffle, a further manifestation of that mindset.