Browne-d off

Today, we finally learnt the outcome of the dreaded Browne Report- the long awaited report on university tuition fees. We all knew that, one way or another, it would see that fees should go up. And, one way or another, that was the outcome.

Sky News was reporting this on their website earlier today, and it created a lot of responses from readers. I love reading comments from readers, especially the uninformed, prejudiced ones from who can only be described as Daily Mail readers. And indeed, the middle class was out in force once again. Most of the comments called for lower or no tuition fees for subjects perceived by them as ‘useful’ or ‘beneficial’- like medicine and engineering, while subjects considered ‘a waste of three years’ should be charged more.

She's only here because she's knackered after her 6 hour week

The problem isn’t that such degrees exist- I believe they are actually worthwhile, and I’ll discuss that later. But I believe so called ‘Mickey Mouse’ degrees only have the reputation they do because of their high uptake. Now, people who have a genuine interest in a career in television production (most graduates from which do not end up in theprofession) are forced to put up with layabout do-nothings who picked the subject because it sounded like a laugh. At sixth form or college, they were heavily encouraged to go to university, even if it wasn’t necessarily for them- leaving universities oversubscribed and struggling with funding. As far as I can see, this is the fault of the Labour government- who desperately tried to sustain their socialist image by aiming to get 50% of school leavers into university. While, of course, I agree that everyone who wants to should have the chance of studying in higher education, it is quite simply not for everyone. You only need to look at the dropout rate of some of the universities with lower reputations to prove that.

Rather than pushing everyone into university, everyone about to leave school should be encouraged to think about what is truly suitable for them. For some that will be university, others, work based training, some, further education courses. Furthermore, how do you actually define a ‘self-indulgent’ degree- as someone on the Sky News website put it?

In the 1930’s, English Literature had the same reputation that Media Studies degrees have today. It was considered un-scientific, perhaps a little away with the fairies- leading some American Professors to introduce more scientific-esque theory into their teaching, which eventually led to what studies in English are today. What most of the people who discount degrees they describe as such don’t realise that they probably wouldn’t ever be able to comprehend some of the incredibly complex ideas that are learnt about.

At risk of speaking with similar Daily Mail fervour, I reckon what needs to be done is not put tuition fees up, rather bring university numbers down by weeding out the time wasters- that’ll make the system fairer.

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