Australian government’s war on woke university degrees is an inspiration

If ever there was a place to sign up for a degree in surfing studies, you might think it was Australia – but maybe not quite so much in future. The country is reforming funding of higher education so as to nudge students into subject areas where there is a shortage of graduates. Fees in those subjects will be lowered and the change funded through increased fees for students following courses where there is a less obvious need for qualified people. You want to read gender studies? From next year, the government’s contribution towards your fees will fall from Aus$11,015 to Aus$1,100 (£6,050 to £605). If you want to study maths, on the other hand, the government’s contribution will rise from Aus$11,015 to Aus$13,500 (£6,850 to £7,420). Generally, student contributions for STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), teaching and nursing will fall, while contributions for humanities courses will rise.

Why doesn’t our Government look into similar reforms? At the moment, most students in England pay a flat tuition fee of £9,250 a year, regardless of the true cost of providing their course, or the value that they might be expected to add to the economy as a result of their qualification. Charging tuition fees was supposed to create more of a market in higher education, but it is not a very effective one from the Government’s point of view because many students on Mickey

Mouse courses will never earn enough to repay the loans they take out to pay their fees. There is no market mechanism that links the courses on offer at universities with the job opportunities available at the end of them. Universities attract students by offering fashionable courses; only too late do those students realise that, however much fun they had in their studies, the qualification they have gained will give them little help in finding a job.

If university applicants are minded to do a bit of research they would discover, for example, that five years after graduating, medicine and dentistry students are earning a median income of £48,000, while students in creative arts and design are earning a median of £20,000. But it is asking a lot of a 17-year-old scrolling through hundreds of enticing-sounding courses to sort out which are useful qualifications and which are less so.

Why not make this clear by varying tuition fees, then? If employers are suffering a shortage of particular skills, students should be attracted through generous grants. If they don’t want to fall for the bait and still want to take up a course in media studies then fine, but let them pay the full cost of the course.

Humanities departments would inevitably squeal, moaning that “universities are not jobs factories”, but so what? Why should the Government in any way fund courses that are of little economic value? If it meant fewer students being indoctrinated in the woke and grievance causes that seem to have taken over parts of contemporary academia then it might well give the economy, and society, a sizeable boost.

Universities attract students by offering fashionable courses; too late, those students realise that the qualification they have gained will give them little help in finding a job