What's a degree worth?

Since the Conservative Party pledged to deal with ‘low value degrees’ in their 2019 manifesto, universities have faced regular waves of criticisms for so-called ‘Mickey Mouse’ degrees.

Despite the clear benefits of a university education – including the £9,500 more per year on average graduates in England earn compared with non-graduates – and the growing need for highly skilled workers in the public and private sectors, student recruitment has been ridiculed as a rush to get ‘bums on seats’, and students taking degrees without a clear path to a well-paid profession have been painted as ill-informed risk takers.

But in reality, UK universities enjoy a world-class reputation for the quality of the education they provide and for equipping students with the knowledge, skills and attitudes they need to develop successful and rewarding careers.

Employers are overwhelmingly positive about the broad range of skills graduates bring to the workplace, and over 80% of new graduates in work or further study see their current activity as meaningful.

But universities cannot and will not ignore concerns that some courses do not meet these high standards and let down students and taxpayers. We will not allow a small minority of courses to damage our world-class reputation, let down our students and dent the confidence of prospective students, their parents and the public.

Working with vice-chancellors across the country during my time as President of Universities UK (UUK), I chaired an advisory group to address these issues. We have now published a new framework to help universities identify and deal with low value degrees.

This new framework builds on the work universities already do each year to look at the performance of their courses, and provides a common approach to determining what counts as good quality and good value.

Our guidance highlights core measures universities should be considering, and which you might expect, including student satisfaction with teaching, assessment, feedback and academic support, ‘drop-out’ rates and career outcomes for graduates. But they go further than this too.

Universities want to support the UK Government’s levelling up agenda. We’re now encouraging universities to consider measures such as:

• how courses support local businesses and high-growth industries
• if their courses are helping to close attainment gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged students
• whether their graduates are working in roles which support essential public services such as the NHS, roles which support the UK’s lucrative creative industries, or roles that have a positive impact on the environment

We are proud that the benefits of going to university are wide-ranging, and it is important that they are properly recognised when assessing the value of a university degree course to individual students, as well as to the economy and society.

Universities do not believe that success should be measured by salary or narrow views of ‘graduate jobs’ alone and, while we know that career opportunities are important to students, most students and recent graduates (79%) think the government should do more to promote the broader benefits of a degree.

It’s important that student and graduate views are fully considered, and universities will also be looking more closely at whether courses meet the expectations of students before they arrived at university and how graduates view their careers after the leave.

This framework has already been successfully piloted with a group of institutions, and it has the full backing of the UUK Board. We hope to use it to work together with the government and the university regulator – the Office for Students – in their reflections on the wider value and contribution of courses.

Universities are committed to identifying and tackling any course which isn’t up to scratch, and by this time next year, you should be able to read statements on English university websites detailing the approaches they are taking annually in monitoring, assessing, and taking action on low-value courses.

Universities must be able to communicate clearly why they offer the courses they do, and what the value of those courses is to prospective students, employers and the public.

This framework is a necessary step towards a more transparent sector, and UUK will be supporting its members at every turn.

This opinion piece was originally published by the Telegraph.