Opinion

Arts degrees don’t deliver quick returns on investment, but they’re not supposed to

It is perfectly obvious that Ireland does not owe all of its 21st-century success to its technological revolution. Instead, its technological revolution owes much to Ireland’s long and esteemed tradition in the arts

Graduates celebrate in the main square of Trinity College. Pushing a joyless logic to its extreme, why not remove the notion of a physical campus altogether and move workplace training online? Photograph: Barry Cronin for The Irish Times.

Finn McRedmond's face
Finn McRedmond
Thu Jul 20 2023 - 06:30

It is hardly a new observation that there is a sustained and targeted attack on the humanities. In Ireland, Stem subjects (science, technology, engineering and maths) receive generous promotion. In the United Kingdom, prime minister Rishi Sunak has called out so-called ‘rip-off’ degrees. Last year, Sheffield Hallam in England moved to cull its English Literature course. In the United States budgets and departments in the arts are being slashed within inches of their lives. This phenomenon is global.

There is probably not enough ink in this newspaper to point to every example of the generalised dismissal of the arts at the altar of the economically “efficient” subjects. And plenty are cognisant of this unfurling crisis: in May an Oireachtas Committee expressed consternation at the Department for Education’s apparent Stem-favouritism. They are right to. The policymakers behind these moves have collectively failed to realise that their love affair with science is short-termism and historically blinkered; that university is more than an economic proposition; and that they are entrenching a class divide between students who can afford to waste time with an English literature degree and those who cannot.

The contention, writ large, seems to be that university is a poor use of youth, and money, if it fails to provide students with good employment outcomes. Fair enough in a narrow sense: in Ireland the lowest paid graduates tend to come from the arts. It’s hardly absurd to suggest to Irish prospective students – given the shape of Ireland’s economy – that investing in a Stem degree over a history one is a financially prudent plan. And Sunak is not wrong, technically speaking, to say that bad degrees offer a “poor return on investment” for young people. His formula – set people up for a good job, reduce the student loan burden, generate a productive workforce – is certainly compelling.

This current disproportionate interest in Stem is evidence of a society capable of looking to the immediate past and very near future, but unable to understand its role in the long, swooping arc of history

But this idea – that the value of learning is directly and primarily correlated to its economic benefit – is not just spiritually bereft but totally ahistorical. Underinvestment in the humanities is born of a failure to acknowledge how they shape our national values, our shared vocabulary, our understanding of what it means to be a good citizen, and, yes, our attitude towards science and progress.

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It is perfectly obvious that Ireland does not owe all of its 21st-century success to its technological revolution. Instead, its technological revolution owes much to Ireland’s long and esteemed tradition in the arts. A sensible society with an eye to the future would understand this symbiosis between art and science. But this current disproportionate interest in Stem is evidence of one capable of looking to the immediate past and very near future, but unable to understand its role in the long, swooping arc of history.

Worse than that, we are at risk of further splitting the educational sphere into two groups. The first, those who use third-level education as a transactional thing for employment opportunities. And the second, the increasing minority of extremely privileged students who still get to read literature and learn Latin. These forces might look like they pull in opposite directions but instead they sustain each other: learning for the sake of it is reserved for the few, vocational skills-based education for the many. What a misfire. In an attempt to improve individual and societal outcomes by over-emphasising Stem and under-emphasising the arts, policymakers merely entrench the status of the foppish elite.

But perhaps it is the chronic joylessness of it all that is hardest to bear. It may not be the ultimate offence but it is certainly sad to see people primarily as economic units and not, say, as beings that might like to read Middlemarch or understand cubism. And eschewing the vision of dreaming spires for utilitarian, skills-based training camps lacks any semblance of youthful romance. Why not just remove the notion of a physical campus altogether, and relocate this workplace training – replete with courses in How To Be A Management Consultant, Office Diplomacy 101, Introduction to Excel – online? Maximise efficiency at all costs.

[ An astounding masterpiece: Middlemarch by George Eliot ]

Of course, applying this logic elsewhere you might end up believing that the best argument to get married is the tax-incentives; that the only value of living in a city is to reduce commute times; that bookshelves should be strictly ordered alphabetically; that between all the hard economic decisions and organisational activities of day-to-day existence there is no space for Middlemarch, or cubism, or life.

[ Maureen Dowd: Don’t ditch literature as Frankensteins are on the march ]

It’s morally incumbent on these enormously wealthy universities to remove the economic impediments to attending them: whether that be the cost of living for students or anxieties about racking up debt. But it is equally important to remember that work – not university – is where you learn to be a good employee; that companies have an imperative to train their staff, not third-level education institutions; and that Stem and the humanities are equal partners in the formation of a successful country.

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