The lessons of university are for life, not for a future career

This week’s Extremely Stupid Idea comes courtesy of Robert Halfon, chairman of the education select committee. Halfon is a former skills minister, an unfortunate moniker that implies he unwittingly lost all his skills as soon as he changed jobs.

Halfon stated that undergraduates should pay more for degrees that do not specifically train them for employment. His argument was that students who learn about sensible, practical things like coding and engineering should be given discounts on tuition fees, whereas namby-pamby dilettantes who waft around reading poetry should pay their own way.

I paraphrase, of course, but that was about the size of it. The problem for the Tories is that they’re on the back foot when it comes to countering Labour’s pledge to abolish tuition fees. A stratified fees system, however, is not the answer.

“If someone wants to do medieval history that’s fine,” Halfon explained. “You still take out your loan and pay it. But all the incentives from government and so on should go to areas the country needs and will bring it most benefit.”

Speaking as someone who did study medieval history (as well as a lot of other things, including political thought and the cultural legacy of the two world wars), I take exception to this. My time at university was valuable precisely because I was given the freedom to explore subject areas that interested me, rather than being constrained by a narrow view of what would lead to long-term employability.

I was able to broaden my horizons both intellectually and socially, and discover who I was as a young adult.

I made my best friends at university – friends who have seen me through some of the toughest times of my life – and I left with a far better understanding of myself, not to mention how to structure an essay on Richard II’S dubious patronage.

You can’t quantify the lessons you learn at university. I’m sure Halfon, if he truly thought about it, would agree. After all, he did a politics degree.