The phrase “The arts and humanities don’t get jobs” has long haunted prospective students considering tertiary study in these fields. I myself have often questioned whether my university degree of choice, the Bachelor of Communication (Media Arts and Production) will actually get me a well-paying or at least, stable career.
Supposedly, a cost-benefit analysis of your average arts degree would make any finance bro shudder at how much of a ‘terrible investment it is’.
This issue of employability has placed these courses in the firing line of sceptical family members across the nation and also, as it seems, the very universities and government who fund it.
Universities’ new business model
Australia’s university sector is deteriorating. Whether it be due to poor governance, cuts to federal funding, financial mismanagement, or caps to international students–whatever excuse needed to explain the simple fact that our universities are in serious financial turmoil.
UTS has a current deficit of $95 million (whilst still miraculously affording a $4.8 million tab to KPMG in return for some great money saving advice!) but I digress. Their new ‘model’ involves sacking 400 staff, merging the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) and Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building (DAB). Alongside temporarily suspending intake for 120 courses, 50% of which are from FASS and DAB. On top a $3.2 million cut to FASS in 2021, which saw staff redundancies, reduced salaries, and the discontinuation of various humanities-focused subjects.
It's the same story across the country:
Macquarie University, is scrapping degrees in archaeology, music, and history whilst majors in the Bachelor of Arts such as politics, gender studies, criminology and psychological studies will be discontinued.
The University of Wollongong is planning to lose up to 137 of its staff with the entire discipline of history potentially getting removed.
The University of Tasmania is cutting its arts and humanities staff and merging the humanities and social sciences faculties into a single school, which would lead to some courses being discontinued.
The Australian National University has announced a combined 127 job cuts over the past 2 months from their College of Science and Medicine and College of Arts and Social Sciences, as well as dissolving their School of Music.
Across the board, these cuts are advertised as faculty and course ‘restructure’ which is just thinly veiled shorthand for laying off staff, generalising subjects, overcrowded classes, and delayed graduation times. By downsizing, and in some cases, abolishing courses, faculties and schools, the quality and breadth of tertiary education is eroded, whilst costing students more than ever.
There is also the unmistakable pattern of arts and humanities disciplines being disproportionately targeted. One might ask, why don’t universities save some cash by undertaking small-scale downsizing across all faculties, or (call me crazy) reducing the salaries of their overpaid executives. But no, the almighty Bachelor of Business remains unscathed over the remains of arts and humanities courses across Australia.
Not all degrees are equal
In 2021, the Coalition government introduced the Job-Ready Graduates (JRG) scheme, which aimed to restructure university funding and HECs to encourage students to enroll in courses aligned with labour market demands and national priorities. Building the image of the ‘ideal’ job-ready graduate through financially incentivising courses in STEM, education, and health whilst imposing disincentives by increasing fees in areas believed to not directly benefit the market. Namely, the arts, humanities, and social sciences.
Which is why my 3-year, underfunded Communications degree has an average cost of $50,000.
JRG was heavily criticised by Labor at the time, yet the Albanese government–a third of which are arts graduates–has deferred any reform to the current scheme. Despite, according to an Australian Universities Accord report, only 1.5% of students applying to enrol in courses they would not have applied for under the pre-JRG arrangements.
Nevertheless, this system leaves degrees in disciplines like Arts, Law, Social Sciences, and Communications 700% more expensive than they were in 1990 (a year after HECS/HELP was introduced). In addition, it essentially locks out arts and humanities for students from socially and financially disadvantaged backgrounds, reducing the potential for diverse voices in these areas.
So when the government actively disincentivises students by putting them in disproportionate debt for courses at risk of getting funding cut whenever universities are starved for cash; it's easy to think that your degree, your interests, and your career prospects are not valued.
It all comes back to money
The agenda of ‘employability' pervades the ways universities and the government view higher education, and is symptomatic of the widespread devaluing of arts/humanities across society and culture.
The work of practitioners in these areas is often competitive, sporadic, under-appreciated, and done for surprisingly little money compared to the effort required. Conflicting with the capitalist business gospel of profitability, productivity, and efficiency that has intruded our lives.
Which explains the explosion of AI generated writing and art, the cinemas filled with cash-grab franchises and remakes, and why universities are run like businesses rather than genuine educational institutions.
Less and less appreciation is put on a discipline literally called the humanities. And that says a lot.
The arts and humanities is who we are.
It's the films you watch, the television you binge, the books you read, the art in your house, the musicians you listen to, the theatre you attend, the history you know. Our teachers, our politicians, our journalists, our academics.
It's the difference between funding and building weapons of war, and considering what happens to humanity if/when they are used.
To dismantle the arts and humanities comes at the cost of young Australians lacking the knowledge to understand our world and to tell its stories in creative, meaningful ways. Ways that the yardstick of moneymaking cannot comprehend.
So whilst an arts or humanities career might not come with a hefty salary, it does not make the work any less important.
Universities’ and the government’s suggestion that these skills are of no use to employers, or have no public benefit, is simply untrue.
The industry skills of an arts/humanities education such as critical thinking, creative voice, research skills, media literacy, and the ability to communicate complex ideas bring, according to the Australian Academy of the Humanities:
“Balance and human perspectives” to decision-making, where “there are going to be more and more human-related challenges, so we will need human skills to overcome this”.
Now is not the time to underestimate the power of these sectors; between global unrest, the impact of AI, increasing wealth inequality, climate change, and distrust in democratic institutions, there is so much work to do.
And there are cohorts of arts and humanities graduates who can get the job done.
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