U.K.: Many degrees not worth it

The expansion of university education has reduced the value of some degrees to zero, as more young people join the workforce as graduates, research suggests. Recent male graduates in arts and humanities are earning no more than those who left education after A levels High School], a study from the Institute of Education has found. The results will add to pressure from universities to be allowed to set student tuition fees according to how much a degree subject is valued by employers. At present the majority of universities charge 3,000 pounds a year, the maximum permitted by the Government. Research universities have pressed for a minimum of 6,000.

The research also calls into question the Government’s long-term aim of increasing university participation to 50 per cent of the adult population, up from 43 per cent at present. Anna Vignoles, Reader in Economics of Education in the department of economic, social and human development at the Institute of Education, who led the study, said that a university degree still had a high value in the labour market. However, a surplus of graduates in some nonscientific subjects could mean that those with degrees in the arts or humanities may soon find that they are not able to earn enough to compensate for the amount that they paid for their university education.

“New graduates in these subject areas are earning similar amounts to those with just A levels High school diploma],” she said. “Some graduates in highly valued subjects, such as accountancy, will continue to profit from the amount they spent on their degrees. But others may gain only a small, or even a nil, return to their investment in higher education.” She added that graduates in arts and humanities subjects, such as history, art, French or English literature, had among the lowest earnings.

Accountancy graduates were earning at least 40 per cent more than them over the course of a lifetime. Dr Vignoles, who will present her findings to the annual conference of the British Educational Research Association in London today, suggested that tuition fees should vary according to subject and institution in order to make students realise what different subjects are worth.

The study draws together a number of research papers into the subject, notably a study of graduate earnings by Professor Peter Sloane and Dr Nigel O’Leary at Swansea University. Dr Vignoles’s findings follow earlier research by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), the consultant, which found that the average university leaver can expect to make 160,000 more between the age of 21 and 60 than those who enter the job market with only A levels. Those with degrees in medicine have the highest earnings premium at 340,315, engineering graduates can expect to make 243,730 more, while those with degrees in geography or history make 51,549 more.

But the PWC report also found that with government grants, bursaries, low interest rates and long repayments, graduates could still expect an average financial return on their investment in their degree of 13.2 per cent a year. Bill Rammell, the Minister for Higher Education, said that despite the expansion of higher education, the financial returns to graduates were high by international standards. “Independent analysis suggests the average premium over a working life remains comfortably over 100,000 (before tax) in today’s valuation,” he said. “I’m glad that potential students are increasingly aware of their likely earnings when choosing a course, but it’s also right that they consider the wider nonfinancial benefits like job satisfaction.”

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Germany: Pupils set up own school

Frustrated German pupils have opened their own school, employing teachers and setting up their own timetables. The school, named the Methodos School, was started by nine pupils who were unhappy about the way they were being taught and with the success rates of their teachers. As a result the final year pupils started their own school, where they felt they would improve their A level [High school diploma] exam chances.

The young adults from Freiburg, all 18, have rented rooms, employed 10 teachers, founded a society and set up a budget. The group will bear the total costs for the school year of 34 000 euros. Their parents have agreed to chip in 10 000 euros, and the pupils hope to find sponsors for the remaining amount.

So far the costs are covered by a loan, but "we all carry the risk to have massive debts after our exams", says Alwin Franke, 19, one of the project's organisers. The Methodos project is not for slackers - Franke explains: "We will study in small groups of four or five from 9am to 5pm, six days a week."

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Australia's know-nothing generation

This is a pretty clear proof that the educational system no longer teaches the basics

The last time Neville Wran sued The Sun newspaper it was over a picture that cast him as Adolf Hitler. The news shot, circa 1982, captures the then NSW premier with dark, slicked hair and square-rimmed glasses, speaking from a lectern with a bulbous black microphone. The microphone looms over Wran's upper lip like a Hitler-style moustache. The accompanying story speaks of Neville Hitler and Adolf Wran and a matter of rising interest rates. Back then it caused outrage on Macquarie Street. It also cost the now-defunct Sun some serious cash.

These days it makes a humorous case for students of media law. Yet each time I show the clipping to a university class, I have to explain who Wran was. I choose not to explain who Hitler was, but it would not surprise me if some students needed reminding.

For centuries universities have been held up as hallowed halls of light and learning. Even in this country, where a decade of budget cuts has crippled classics departments and left research funding pools in drought, universities are valued for their contribution to intellectual debate. They are also seen as a salve for unemployment and social disharmony. But Australian educators face a serious problem: how to enliven a student body that thinks googling a wiki is a serious academic endeavour. In a world swamped by information, many students have little interest in accessing it. We have law students who have never read a case, English students who do not read books and journalism students who do not buy newspapers. Don't laugh, it's true.

Each semester I ask my students how many of them buy newspapers. Five at most raise their hands. The showing is even more dismal when it comes to listening to radio. Television and online news sites are more popular. But when I ask how many get their main news from headlines on their Yahoo! webmail there is a round of sheepish laughter. For journalism students in particular, the past month has been a great time to be following the news. First there was Rupert Murdoch's controversial take-over of The Wall Street Journal. Then there was the biggest ethical issue since the cash-for-comment debate, when the ABC journalist Michael Brissenden broke an off-the-record agreement with the Treasurer, Peter Costello. The sad reality is that many students do not know who Murdoch is. Let alone Brissenden and Costello. Cash for comment, huh?

When the information technology revolution crashed onto our shores, educators were excited about the possibilities of online learning. They saw the internet as a way of moving learning into the 21st century and online forums as a way of bolstering flagging classroom discussions. Instead, what we have experienced is an information tsunami. Too much data is as dangerous as too little data. We're drowning, not waving. And students have simply tuned out. One NSW lecturer recalls asking a class of second-year law students to name a radio station on the AM band. Not one could. Another law faculty lecturer recalls how her discussion about Nixon and Watergate drew a blank. No one had any idea about either. A health sciences lecturer recalls how she played her students a YouTube clip of geriatric musicians covering the Who's My Generation. "My students had no idea who the Who were," she says. "And no idea why it was significant that the single was recorded at Abbey Road."

In my classes, eyes glaze over when I talk about Michael Harvey and Gerard McManus and the case for journalistic shield laws. There are yawns when I question whether Fairfax journalists should have pounced on the Kevin Rudd strip-club scandal first. And when I argue the importance of leaks in the Mohamed Haneef case, I see the worried brows before me. Mohamed who?

Recently, ABC TV's Media Watch took issue with a Today Tonight story in which Chinese students were interviewed about Australian values. The story, dubbed "Passing The Pavlova Test", featured two young women who admitted they had never eaten pavlova and did not know Don Bradman. Sadly, it is not only international students who admit a gaping lack of general knowledge. Spelling among local students is atrocious. Plagiarism is rife. Academic references include wikis and lecturers' notes. Cut-and-paste technology has made libraries redundant. Many students do not know where the library is and some leave their laptops only reluctantly to attend classes. Some academics believe that in an industry worth almost $10 billion, as many as one in two students are cheating.

It must be said, this is not a criticism of students. Students for the most part are doing it tough. Most full-timers work part-time jobs and all part-timers arrive straight from work. International students are grappling with homesickness and language barriers. What must be addressed is the ideology of the ignorance. Students know what needs to be done and they'll be damned if they'll do any more. One colleague pointed me to the book Age of Extremes, in which the historian Eric Hobsbawm recalls a student asking whether the description "World War II" meant there had also been a first world war.

Contemporary curriculums must move with the times. Completing the assessment and working through the required readings is not enough. If we require students to consider the past, we must also allow them the opportunity to consider the future. Neville Hitler and Adolf Wran would both probably have something to say about that.

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