Arts degree fee hikes: For arts sake, stop the humanities bashing

The critics – most of whom have never set foot on a university campus – are applauding price hikes for allegedly “useless” arts degrees, but if they’d had their blinkers removed by a humanities education, they would see just how foolishly parochial they are, writes Paul Williams.

WHAT’S a university for?

For parents with year 12 children anxious about ATAR scores, the answer is probably to teach their kids the skills they need to get a job in a dog-eat-dog world.

Cut-price degrees on offer – but humanities studies to skyrocket

Humanities graduates earn more than those who study science and maths

Talking Point: Arts and humanities needed more than ever

The Morrison Government offers a similar answer; to kick start (especially export) industries now comatose under coronavirus. Yes, Education Minister Dan Tehan is offering some altruism in his tertiary education reforms. After all, doing anything to return the jobless to work is better than doing nothing.

But he’s also being opportunistic – the federal Coalition simply cannot win an election in 23 months’ time with an unemployment level north of 10 per cent.

I was therefore overjoyed to see Tehan slash the cost of maths and agricultural degrees by 62 per cent, teaching, nursing, psychology and languages degrees by 46 per cent, and health, science, IT, architecture, environmental science and engineering by 20 per cent. These reductions will go a long way to assisting Australia’s recovery.

But my jaw dropped when I heard law and commerce degrees would increase by 28 per cent, and floored by the 113 per cent hike in humanities degrees.

I can already hear the critics – most of whom have never set foot on a university campus – applauding price hikes for allegedly “useless” arts degrees. If they’d had their childhood blinkers removed by a humanities education, they would see just how foolishly parochial they are.

Moreover, why burden the arts and humanities – the intellectual bedrock for an Australia long punching above its global weight in non-scientific fields – with almost sole responsibility for Australia’s economic recovery? Where’s the economic modelling suggesting that bashing the BA is the most propitious path to economic and cultural prosperity?

Why can’t even a tiny fraction of the $60 billion the Morrison Government found down the back of the couch – earmarked for Jobkeeper but now not needed – be invested to cut all degree costs to save Australia’s third-largest export industry raking in over $30 billion annually?

Does this mean the modern university is now about “training” students with specific skills for jobs now, and no longer about “educating” them for jobs yet to be conceived? And what about research? Aren’t universities about more than making new scientific discoveries like cloning? Aren’t they also about determining how those discoveries might add or subtract from our material and spiritual lives?

I had hoped better from an Education Minister whose first qualification was an arts degree. But I suspect the pragmatically political Tehan – the privileged son of politician parents – won out.

I also suspect there’s a lot of ideology in the Morrison Government’s dangerously short-sighted response. Indeed, there are few votes among blue collar workers in regional Australia – key to the Coalition’s re-election chances in 2022 – who question a university sector they see as ivory towers for overpaid, lazy left-wingers – who’ve “never held a real job” – hell-bent on brainwashing young folk.

Why short-sighted? Because arts and humanities students graduate not just with specific skills for jobs today (like data analysis and report writing) but, also, adaptable life-long learning skills for tomorrow (like assessing the veracity of information via triangulation).

That’s why humanities graduates are in hot demand by private industries demanding their employees be creative thinkers operating outside the box.

The humanities also teaches students to think, speak and write clearly and concisely, to collate and critically analyse data, and to draw conclusions – and make important decisions – from hard evidence and not from what your mates at the pub told you they saw on Facebook.

Arts graduates are also more likely to show tolerance for those who are different or disadvantaged, less likely to form superficial judgments on appearance, and more able to see others’ points of view.

Above all, humanities graduates become problem-solvers – the very type a beleaguered Australian economy needs most.

And, for the record, I am an arts graduate. I’ve also worked in a warehouse, driven second-hand Toyotas most of my life, and do a significant amount of unpaid community work.

In a 60 hour working week I bend over backwards to help students who’ve gone on to become cabinet ministers, senior journalists and leaders in business and the public service. Most of my university colleagues are no different.

But don’t let that prevent you from forming an opinion about someone you’ve never met.

paul williams is a senior lecturer at griffith university