Paul Hewitson (Letters, 28 November) quotes Jack Britton, the author of an Institute for Fiscal Studies report into graduate pay, who referred to “a large class of men doing courses that have a zero or negative monetary value”. How do we measure the value of a degree? Is it solely and wholly on the basis of graduate earnings? Presumably, then, a degree that leads to a career in teaching or nursing is worth only a fraction of a degree that leads into commercial law or corporate accountancy? What about the value to society? What about the educational and intellectual value of a degree? What about less tangible factors such as cultural enrichment, interacting with people from other backgrounds, communication skills, fostering improved literacy?
Judging the value of academic qualifications purely on the basis of subsequent earnings is all too typical of the crass philistinism that the current government and the rightwing press routinely promote, and which views universities as little more than educational supermarkets selling a packaged product to bargain-hunting student consumers; universities in which education and learning are increasingly subordinated to providing the skills and training apparently demanded by big business.
Pete Dorey
Bath, Somerset
