Crackdown On ‘Mickey Mouse Degrees’ Will Hit Poorest Students Hardest

A planned crackdown on perceived ‘low value’ or ‘Mickey Mouse’ degrees will have its biggest impact on students who have the most to gain from higher education.

The U.K. Government today unveiled proposals to limit the number of students universities can recruit onto courses that fail to deliver what it perceives as ‘good outcomes’.

The targets are so-called ‘Mickey Mouse degrees’, courses that have high drop-out rates or are less likely to lead to high-paid jobs.

Launching the policy, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said: “Too many young people are being sold a false dream and end up doing a poor-quality course at the taxpayers’ expense that doesn’t offer the prospect of a decent job at the end of it.

ADVERTISEMENT

“That is why we are taking action to crack down on rip-off university courses.”

But the people who will be hardest hit by this policy are students from less advantaged backgrounds who stand to gain the most from going to university.

And it also neglects the possibility that the value of going to university is about more than just getting a graduate job.

Students from less advantaged backgrounds are not only less likely to go to university than their classmates, but also less likely to go to a highly selective university.

The gap in the likelihood of getting a place at a more selective university between a student from a deprived background and their more affluent classmate is at the highest level ever recorded, according to figures released just last week.

ADVERTISEMENT

For disadvantaged students, the so-called low tariff or less selective universities – the targets of Sunak’s policy – are their lifeline out of poverty.

These universities have played the most significant role in driving social mobility, according to research carried out by the U.K. charity the Sutton Trust and the Institute of Fiscal Studies think tank.

While the most selective universities level the playing field between individual students the most, less selective numbers take on disadvantaged students in far greater numbers.

“Universities sometimes seen as having lower graduate outcomes are in fact contributing strongly to social mobility as their students from low-income backgrounds go on to earn more highly than they otherwise would have done,” the research found.

While a degree is not always the route to riches, it is frequently the route to a young person getting a better paid job than if they hadn’t gone to university.

According to Sir Peter Lampl, founder of the Sutton Trust: “Less selective universities are really doing the heavy lifting to promote social mobility.”

ADVERTISEMENT

The less selective universities themselves have argued against the use of graduate salary as a way of measuring a degree’s value.

“It does not capture the full-range of graduate employment patterns, including in sectors such as the creative industries, nor does it accommodate regional pay disparities,” said Rachel Hewitt, chief executive of MillionPlus, the association of modern universities.

“It also takes no account of the non-monetary benefits of higher education and the family background of graduates.”

It also ignores the fact that the salaries of many socially valuable graduate professions, such as teaching and nursing, are limited by government policy, she added.

For many young people, much of the value of a degree lies in the job opportunities that become available.

But a degree is about so much more than that. Higher education can broaden horizons, provide rich experiences and transform lives in ways that go beyond Sunak’s purely mechanistic approach.

ADVERTISEMENT

The crackdown also comes at a time when young people are being starved of alternatives to higher education, with three in five saying they do not pursue apprenticeships because of a lack of availability.

While Sunak pledges to boost skills training and make more apprenticeships available, previous expansions have failed to provide the promised uplift, so it would be as well to reserve judgement pending delivery.

It is not hard to see the primary reason for the crackdown. The government is keen to reduce the amount of student debt that ends up being written off when graduate earnings are too low to meet the repayment threshold.

ADVERTISEMENT

But behind this lies another, less wholesome, reason, and that is the politics of class.

Research by the thinktank More in Common found that it was the middle class who are more likely to believe that too many people go to university. These are largely people who not only assume that their own children will go to university, but have an expectation that this will be a highly selective university.

In contrast, people described as Loyal Nationals, who are less likely to have gone to university themselves, are amongst the most likely to say the numbers going into higher education are too few or just right.

ADVERTISEMENT

In other words, this is not so much an argument about the merits of higher education, as about the belief that too many of other people’s children, particularly non-middle class children, are going to university.

This is perhaps a fear that a university education could end up being devalued, or perhaps a fear that it could end up depriving ‘more deserving’ children of their rightful place.

In this light, the crackdown on ‘low value’ degrees is yet another education policy designed by those who did well out of education, and who know that their children will do well.

Of course, there is an argument about whether higher education is worth it, particularly when students get into enormous debt to fund it, and about the quality of degrees.

But this can be addressed by an effective system of quality control, and by greater transparency of drop-out rates and graduate earnings. There is no need for this sledgehammer if students can go into higher education with their eyes open.

ADVERTISEMENT