Ignoring the specifics in this case, I'm in favour of the govt requiring that the degrees available are viable for career progression. Speaking as someone from Australia, I see too many universities offering degrees that the target industries don't actually value as a credential, or the university itself has no post-grad academic path. If the degree can't lead to anything it shouldn't exist imo.
Many industries don't actually require a degree, just that you can "do the thing", and you're much better off doing a shorter course at some private outfit (provided it's actually good), or just skilling up online.
A big example that comes to mind is game dev, which is a borderline scam at uni. You're much better off doing comp sci or software eng, and then building a port folio in your own time then taking any course with "game" in the title.
An even bigger example is game design, which should be considered a senior role and not really a position where a path exists directly from any course.
If mathematicians and other scientists throughout history had only worked on problems that have an industry use at their time, there would be no industry today.
Ah yes, that rara avis, a PhD in Coed Cooking....
You are quite correct, a degree should have an open ended ceiling. Technical competency diplomas exist among many parallel similar diplomas and quantify people to certain tasks
I think about this all the time. The combining of seemingly unrelated skills brings new perspectives and it helps people go from being cogs to creators.
I don’t know what is being proposed, but admittedly the Uk is littered with awful universities offering variations on “media studies”, which at best offer a government-subsidised lifestyle to some students for a few years, and at worst are visa scams (pay to join, you’ll get a student visa).
But of course they might mean “what use is psychology to a corporate automaton anyway”.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 38.7 ms ] threadMany industries don't actually require a degree, just that you can "do the thing", and you're much better off doing a shorter course at some private outfit (provided it's actually good), or just skilling up online.
A big example that comes to mind is game dev, which is a borderline scam at uni. You're much better off doing comp sci or software eng, and then building a port folio in your own time then taking any course with "game" in the title.
An even bigger example is game design, which should be considered a senior role and not really a position where a path exists directly from any course.
It's hard to quantify the peripheral value of courses like those offered in the arts and humanities.
I'm very STEM-oriented, but I feel there's value in these courses that don't directly pay off in the free market.
But of course they might mean “what use is psychology to a corporate automaton anyway”.
They need to address tuition fees before anything else.
If so, it could be argued it’s legitimate for them to only offer loans based on courses that offer the taxpayer a return on their investment.