An old joke bears repeating in the wake of proposals this week to reform student funding in England. What do you say to an arts graduate? Big Mac and fries, please, mate.
The low earnings of some degree holders gave a panel led by former banker Philip Augar something to chew on. It advocated changes to the system intended to promote hard-edged subjects such as maths, over nebulous ones such as media studies.
The report draws heavily on the work of the respected Institute for Fiscal Studies. This found that a man who studies “creative arts” — a category including art and drama — typically earns 10 per cent less aged 29 than if he had gone straight to work from school. That compares with an 82 per cent improvement in earnings from becoming a doctor.
A graph of graduate earnings in the Augar report lacked the subtlety of the IFS chart shown above. The shocker here is not that sawbones achieve higher earnings than thesps (represented by the blue dots). It is how little education mattered to wages after the IFS adjusted for school attainment and family wealth (yellow dots).
The upgrade after long hours studying anatomy then fell to 24 per cent. Physics, the kind of subject adored by the Gradgrinds of the CBI, a UK business lobby group, provided a feeble 1.4 per cent fillip. That is scarcely better than for history, Mr Augar’s own subject.
The biggest post-adjustment uplift was in economics: 33 per cent. Validation there for IFS researchers, many of whom are economists.
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