0The Duomo in Florence. The birth of the Renaissance is celebrated in Tuscany’s capital (Anderson, William J via picryl)
Cast your mind back to your university open day. You probably remember the free tote bag, the student ambassador walking you across campus, and the glossy prospectus promising that your degree would see doors fly open. What you probably don’t remember is anyone telling you what an English graduate actually earns.
That silence is getting harder to justify. Students starting university this year pay up to £9,790 a year in tuition, up from £9,535 last year. Three years now costs around £29,000 before a single week’s rent, and once maintenance loans are added, the Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates typical borrowing at around £52,000. For that price, students deserve to read the small print.
So what does the small print say? In June, the IFS published its most detailed estimates yet of what a degree is worth over a lifetime. The headline is reassuring: the average graduate ends up around £100,000 better off than a similar person who skipped university. But the average hides a sharp divide. Medicine and economics return over £400,000. Creative arts, philosophy and languages sit at the other end, with low or negative returns on average. In The Tab’s breakdown of the figures, a creative arts degree leaves graduates around £40,000 worse off over their lifetime, and performing arts £43,000. Across all subjects, roughly a quarter of graduates are financially worse off for having gone at all. Even the government accepts this, where skills minister Jacqui Smith admitted that “not all degrees are equal” and you will struggle to find that sentence in a prospectus.
Part of the problem is a repayment system that makes the cost feel unreal. Under the current Plan 5 terms, graduates repay 9% of everything they earn over £25,000 for up to 40 years. So, someone who graduates at 21 could still be paying at 61 and because repayments depend on income rather than on what you owe, the loan behaves less like a bill and more like a decades-long graduate tax. That protects low earners, but it also makes the true cost almost impossible for a 17-year-old to picture. And a cost you can’t picture is very easy to sell to a 17-year old, who might not have had any experience in earning money in the real world.
The problem, then, is not the degree but the sales pitch.
None of this means arts degrees are worthless. The IFS itself is clear that its figures leave out health, happiness and job satisfaction, and suggests arts students may simply care less about salary than other graduates. The creative industry is still financially viable: in 2024 it contributed £145.8bn to the UK economy. At the end of the day, someone has to train the writers, designers and performers who power this industry. Measured alongside the GDP of the UK, this means the creative industries contributes to just under 5% of the economy. Outcomes also vary hugely within subjects: the IFS found the top tenth of female creative arts graduates were earning at least £61,000 by 37. At Exeter, I see what humanities courses give people every day: the ability to argue, write and question what they’re told. Those skills don’t show up neatly on a payslip, but almost every employer relies on them.
The problem, then, is not the degree but the sales pitch. Universities happily borrow the language of investment, with talk of career prospects and graduate outcomes, without offering the transparency a real investment would demand. Discover Uni does publish earnings data, but it is grouped by subject rather than shown course by course, and it sits on a government website rather than in the prospectus.
Reform doesn’t need to be radical. Universities should put clear earnings and employment data alongside their marketing, with an honest explanation of how wide the range of outcomes is. Arts courses should build in practical content, such as placements, portfolios and industry projects, so graduates can show employers what their skills look like in practice. And schools should explain how repayments actually work before anyone signs up.
Nobody should be talked out of studying what they love. But nobody should be talked into it with a sales pitch either. Give students the honest numbers and let them decide whether an arts degree is worth it because plenty of them still will.
I’m a second-year Law student from rural North Wales with a soft spot for theatre, literature, film and all things culture. When I’m not studying, I’m probably at the theatre, adding to my Letterboxd watchlist, or developing a niche obsession I’ll inevitably make everyone hear about. I’m particularly interested in the stories, ideas and people that make the world a little more interesting.
Arts degrees are being sold with promises they can’t keep
Cast your mind back to your university open day. You probably remember the free tote bag, the student ambassador walking you across campus, and the glossy prospectus promising that your degree would see doors fly open. What you probably don’t remember is anyone telling you what an English graduate actually earns.
That silence is getting harder to justify. Students starting university this year pay up to £9,790 a year in tuition, up from £9,535 last year. Three years now costs around £29,000 before a single week’s rent, and once maintenance loans are added, the Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates typical borrowing at around £52,000. For that price, students deserve to read the small print.
So what does the small print say? In June, the IFS published its most detailed estimates yet of what a degree is worth over a lifetime. The headline is reassuring: the average graduate ends up around £100,000 better off than a similar person who skipped university. But the average hides a sharp divide. Medicine and economics return over £400,000. Creative arts, philosophy and languages sit at the other end, with low or negative returns on average. In The Tab’s breakdown of the figures, a creative arts degree leaves graduates around £40,000 worse off over their lifetime, and performing arts £43,000. Across all subjects, roughly a quarter of graduates are financially worse off for having gone at all. Even the government accepts this, where skills minister Jacqui Smith admitted that “not all degrees are equal” and you will struggle to find that sentence in a prospectus.
Part of the problem is a repayment system that makes the cost feel unreal. Under the current Plan 5 terms, graduates repay 9% of everything they earn over £25,000 for up to 40 years. So, someone who graduates at 21 could still be paying at 61 and because repayments depend on income rather than on what you owe, the loan behaves less like a bill and more like a decades-long graduate tax. That protects low earners, but it also makes the true cost almost impossible for a 17-year-old to picture. And a cost you can’t picture is very easy to sell to a 17-year old, who might not have had any experience in earning money in the real world.
None of this means arts degrees are worthless. The IFS itself is clear that its figures leave out health, happiness and job satisfaction, and suggests arts students may simply care less about salary than other graduates. The creative industry is still financially viable: in 2024 it contributed £145.8bn to the UK economy. At the end of the day, someone has to train the writers, designers and performers who power this industry. Measured alongside the GDP of the UK, this means the creative industries contributes to just under 5% of the economy. Outcomes also vary hugely within subjects: the IFS found the top tenth of female creative arts graduates were earning at least £61,000 by 37. At Exeter, I see what humanities courses give people every day: the ability to argue, write and question what they’re told. Those skills don’t show up neatly on a payslip, but almost every employer relies on them.
The problem, then, is not the degree but the sales pitch. Universities happily borrow the language of investment, with talk of career prospects and graduate outcomes, without offering the transparency a real investment would demand. Discover Uni does publish earnings data, but it is grouped by subject rather than shown course by course, and it sits on a government website rather than in the prospectus.
Reform doesn’t need to be radical. Universities should put clear earnings and employment data alongside their marketing, with an honest explanation of how wide the range of outcomes is. Arts courses should build in practical content, such as placements, portfolios and industry projects, so graduates can show employers what their skills look like in practice. And schools should explain how repayments actually work before anyone signs up.
Nobody should be talked out of studying what they love. But nobody should be talked into it with a sales pitch either. Give students the honest numbers and let them decide whether an arts degree is worth it because plenty of them still will.
The University of Exeter offers opportunities throughout the term for employability. Events being held at the Career Zone can be found here at https://www.exeter.ac.uk/students/careers/events/whatsonexeter/ and https://www.exeter.ac.uk/students/careers/about/appointments/dropins/ and are open to all students.
Chayika Jones
I’m a second-year Law student from rural North Wales with a soft spot for theatre, literature, film and all things culture. When I’m not studying, I’m probably at the theatre, adding to my Letterboxd watchlist, or developing a niche obsession I’ll inevitably make everyone hear about. I’m particularly interested in the stories, ideas and people that make the world a little more interesting.
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