First of all, I want to say that I am a proud alumni of the University of Birmingham with a first-class degree in Drama and Theatre Arts, and I’m the first person in my family to have attended University. I currently look after the marketing and events activities of the School of Languages, Cultures, Art History and Music. I have only been working in the Higher Education sector for a mere six months, but I am truly delighted to be able to work at the institution which has opened my eyes to think autonomously, critically and creatively in both my degree and my current role.
I have recently travelled in time to the Year 2026, a bit like in HG Wells’ novel, The Time Machine with less morlocks. I was suddenly 33 years of age and in this short post I would like to voice my concern for our fragile arts subjects in Higher Education.
But first, a bit of context from my experience. Over the years, we have seen a drastic shift in teenagers choosing to study arts subjects at A Level, and consequently degree-level. Why is this? Well, as fees rise, grants diminish and the class divisions of students are more and more evident, learners see themselves not so much as open-minded vessels for learning or pursuing their passions, but as consumers. Consumers of instant feedback, grading lecturers, grading landlords, grading facilities, political meme-making etc. And I don’t blame them. I regularly hear “I have technically paid £300 for this seminar, and I don’t feel I have gotten anything out of it”, simultaneously with, “mate, I didn’t do the reading for this seminar, I just looked it up on Wikipedia instead”. This juxtaposition of taking ownership and lethargy illustrates that students may feel at constant confrontation with themselves as to what they feel a degree is for. Degree = Job. Degree = Investment in Future. Degree = Practical, clear-pathway-into-a-role, professional, starting salary, having a great job in unsure times of political unrest. Arts subjects = ‘Mickey-Mouse Degree”, unclear path into the future, freelancing, struggle, not getting back the investment that has been put in, not an obvious function in the economy, no utilitarian value, a lifetime of debt.
In 2026, this paradigm shift has resulted in a tectonic plate shift. The University of Birmingham will become an environment where the exam-mill of primary and secondary education has left students subdued, lacklustre and constantly hungry for instant, physical and measurable evidence of their progress. This shift has increased the lack of interest in arts subjects, such as, Modern languages, History of Art and Music. In the future, this domination will be greater and departments will have shrunk or be non-existent.
I am not saying that I need to shove a handful of 2026 students in my time machine and take them back to the 1960s so that activists could galvanise them out of their lethargy and encourage them to take control of their passions and futures. I mean, I wasn’t even alive in the 1960s, but my time machine has taken me back there so I have a pretty good idea of what it was like. What I am saying, however, is that University learning should be a mutual exchange of passion, methodologies and debates between lecturers and students – not a one-way consuming machine whereby all outputs need to be measured , have a monetary value and link directly to your job in five years’ time.
Today, I thought it would be interesting to travel back to Hull College in 2011 to see my 17-year-old self on her lunch break from her Acting BTEC. I said to her,
“I’m sorry, Danielle, I have travelled into the future and I’m afraid you’re just too poor to go to University… Don’t cry, arts degrees are a waste of time and money anyway”.
Obviously, I don’t have a time machine, I can’t see the future at all, and I didn’t have a conversation with my past self. I fear, however, that if necessary measures are not put in place to ignite the trust between arts degrees and teenagers again, 2026 will be a place with considerably less passion and hunger to learn.
I feel like we are taking baby steps, with our recent ‘Why Study Languages?’ and ‘Why Study History of Art?’ videos, but these are tactics. The HE Sector needs a strategy.
It would indeed be a tragedy if we lose the Arts in universities. Imagine a world without books, media in all its forms, philosophy, history, music etc. This would surely be a terrible world. Yet, Danielle is right and students are being pushed to consider a degree in the context of future earnings (only). I was at an event at the Royal Society last week where the advent of LEO – the data set that will link degree studied to life earnings (through the tax system) – was presented as a game changer in influencing student choice.
Danielle suggests that universities need a new strategy. Any thoughts?
One of the most basic things that universities can do, and traditionally have done, is to lead by example. They need to strongly represent the vision that “value” is not just represented in monetary terms, measured by ratings, prizes or celebrity, captured on spreadsheets or sustained by likes.
How to do that? One straightforward way is to not operate that way themselves.
This has two very practical outcomes. One is that is sustains that very important vision to the rest of society. A second, paradoxically, is that it preserves the very real monetary value that Universities contribute to society. It is such a common expression in the sciences (where I work) that _basic_ research pays, that it is a virtual truism, repeated reflexively and then ignored.
It is, however, true in a much more challenging sense. The sciences have an extremely good track record of producing value (also the Arts, to which I will return). Anyone who has used the products of medical science will know this without being told. I would be dead several times over if I took the time machine back only some decades into the past. The value produced is only very remotely connected, however, to its present value. If you made a list of useless projects to put money into, research into prime numbers might be close to the top of the list and yet this underpins all of internet commerce. This happens over and over. The historical record is very clear. Not only that, there are very few other place where people imagine solutions to very pressing global problems will come from. To realise that value, however, you have to make decisions that are not based on value in the present. That is the paradox.
Universities are being very strongly encouraged, however, to pick the winners in the present. If you can do that why work in a university? The almost literally uncountable riches of the City of London await you.
I’ve described the sciences, because that is where I work. However, at the point of discovery, creativity and promoting of human value, the arts and sciences are not different. Even practically, future challenges are not just technological — they are also about choices over meaning and value that the arts have always lead. In the present, though, we are all at the foggy, messy, challenging and exciting edge where we don’t know where the next insights are going to come from. The university needs to represent a much wider vision of human value. Why? Because it can. And because that is what it is charged to do. The first step is to be that vision on the inside. To literally embody it. Are we up for that?
I agree with Andrew’s points. The challenge is how to do what he suggests when we are are being pushed so hard by external forces. The Government clearly feels that it has a right to seek ‘value for money’ from universiites. Most political careers are compararatively short, so politicians tend to want to see that value quickly. This is a fundamental tension.