Why the govt should fund arts degrees (& why they won’t) (essay)

Why the govt should fund arts degrees (& why they won’t)

The coalition government intend on pulling state funding for arts and humanities degrees in the UK, in favour of funding education in disciplines such as science and engineering. University departments offering arts and humanities courses will be left to fund themselves, and will become dependent on the increased tuition fees their students will be expected to pay back after graduation.

I worry this spells a death knell for arts and humanities higher education in this country. Students with degrees in these disciplines are likely to be earning less on graduation than their peers who studied science, as careers in the arts generally command lower salaries. Therefore, a lot of arts and humanities graduates may be unable to fully pay back the tuition fees they owe, so with less money going into them, the quality of arts courses will diminish and the departments offering them may ultimately be forced to close.

The government clearly don’t mind this. Their concern is with ‘driving the economy’ and they see science education, not arts education, as being better able to contribute to the country’s prosperity. I understand that and I don’t doubt the value of the skills and knowledge developed via degrees in more scientific and practically-based subjects. But to completely abandon the arts is unsettling – yeah, we need a healthy economy but we also need the sort of critical and creative thinking a higher education in more theoretically-based subjects can breed, not to mention all those life-enhancing things such thinking can lead to e.g. books, art, new political ideologies and theories, fashion, music, culture.

However, what particularly concerns me about these funding cuts is the potential closure of arts and humanities departments, and how that will prevent many people from being able to access the sort of ideas and knowledge they  otherwise wouldn’t receive if they didn't undergo university study.

Pursuing a higher education in history, politics, sociology, philosophy etc, can lead to the full

flowering of those exciting ideas initially planted in the sixth form classroom or through the reading and activities we may have got involved in a few years later to counter the brain-drain our jobs induced. Developing those ideas and interests via a course of concentrated study, such as a degree allows, even if done part-time, is often the only chance many people will get to do so.

For the young woman raised in a family who regard reading as a suspicious activity (because why read when you’ve got the telly?), or for the older woman who never had a chance to further her education when she was younger because she had to work and provide for her kids, a higher education, whether it’s taken up at 18 or 48, provides an opportunity to explore the sorts of ideas that can open up new ways of thinking about and living in the world they otherwise wouldn’t have.

But if arts and humanities courses are going to decrease in number, and the places available on those that do remain also go down, there’s a risk such women and others like them will not only be put off studying for a degree in the arts, given that the courses likely to remain will be those offered at the more prestigious universities, but unable to study them, because the places simply won’t be there. Therefore, cultivating the depth and breadth of knowledge higher education allows will go back to being the preserve of the elite and upper middle-classes, who even without higher education, are more likely to have been encouraged in political and critical thinking growing up, and may continue to have more time to devote to such pursuits as they get older, unlike their less economically-privileged counterparts. 

To which right-wing, mathematical-leaning minds might still reply – but what’s the use of encouraging people from lower-income/educational backgrounds into a higher education of the mind when it’s unlikely to lead to a decent job at the end of it? We’ve got the economy to think about it, remember?!

But what about the importance of pursuing education for the sake of it? Why should the value of an education only be determined by the economic reward it can bring? Sure, a degree in English or Cultural Studies is less likely to lead to a well-paying job than a degree in medicine or Biochemistry. But it can bring other rewards. Reading philosophy, critiquing politics, debating new ideas, developing new theory are all enriching pursuits in themselves, and whilst devoting time to them may leave your bank account looking a bit starved, the mind-nourishment they offer can make up for that. Lest we forget, there’s more to life than slaving away in a high-powered job and being able to splash your cash at weekends – just the sort of sanity-saving mentality an arts/humanities degree can instil! 

I graduated with a degree in that most lambasted subject of them all - media studies - and my record of paid employment since graduating 5 years ago would confirm all the prejudices many a right-wing, high-brow Sunday newspaper columnist has towards that subject. I’m an admin assistant who types up other people’s ideas as opposed to getting paid to write my own. And I admit that my higher education has heightened my awareness of the bullshit power struggles, structures and politics that make up the workaday everyday, often leading to profound feelings of frustration and dissatisfaction as a result of ending up on that side of the desk where you’re expected to keep your head down and do as you’re told.

However, I don’t regret studying for my media degree. My higher education opened up my mind in a way I don’t think would have been possible had I followed my parents’ path and that of others in my family; that of settling into a 9 – 5 job, getting married, having children, and generally not causing a fuss, all by the time you’re 30. The feminist and other radical politics I fostered at university means I can see a world beyond the four walls of my office and the boundaries of my city and they’ve encouraged my pursuit of interests and activities outside of paid work, so that I’m able to identify as more than just a secretary. The new writing and thinking higher education turned me on to, means possibility, autonomy, impermanence, and freedom are all things I get to experience, in contrast to how it may have turned out had I not gone the bookish route; in which case boredom, narrow-mindedness, routine, and feeling stifled would have weighed me down.

But there are other reasons, aside from the purely economic, as to why the ConDem government would wish to abandon support for higher education in the arts. The sort of critical/radical/lefty worldviews and lifestyles a higher education in those disciplines can lead one to embrace are incompatible with the dominant political ideology of the day; they breed discontent and criticism of it, and therefore can’t be allowed to flourish.

I saw PM David Cameron being interviewed on the news earlier this week, and when asked why he was keen for the UK to get on China’s good side, despite that country’s record of human rights abuses, he answered in terms of the need to further economic and national (security) interests. That’s what’s important, people! Becoming all-powerful, looking out for number one, taking down those who won’t co-operate. Money, greed, war, individualism, self-interest, consumerism: this is where our collective heart lies and as individuals we’re supposed to play along in our everyday lives; go work a job which turns a tidy profit (none of that ‘mooching about’ in the public sector), purchase Xmas gifts for your loved ones whilst on your grocery shop (why should it take any longer than picking up a pint of milk?), go home, head down.

We’re not encouraged to make our punk rock dreams a reality, to co-operate with others, work to improve someone else’s position in society aside from our own; we’re not encouraged to be inspired, devote time and money to getting creative and producing the sort of stuff we can value for how it makes us feel inside and not how much it cost; we’re not encouraged to be critical and thoughtful, to push the boundaries of our minds, to stop for a minute to ask, ‘what the fuck is this?’ and think up another way.

Given this, the strongest argument to put forward in favour of funding higher education in the arts/humanities is that such study can give us the ability to envision a new way of doing things and help us go about structuring society differently so that’s it built on a better set of values than those it currently is. Yet this is also the strongest argument upholders of the political and economic status quo can put forward for not wanting to support the pursuit of arts/humanities education – they would rather things stayed the way they are.

We shouldn’t give up though on advocating for people’s right to an education in the arts/humanities and making sure it’s accessible to all who wish to pursue it. Maybe we need to consider ways of promoting and disseminating arts/humanities education in other ways, if its future within the universities looks bleak, which in turn could create more opportunities for people to discover and explore these disciplines.

For whilst we may not be in a position to completely change the world with the ideas and politics a higher education in the arts/humanities can give us, there’s no reason why we can’t use them to overturn minds and change things in our own smaller worlds, and have them provide an anchor and perspective on life that can be heart-warming and life-affirming in the midst of so much cruel cold capitalist bullshit.

By Michelle Wright
Winter 2010