U.K. Government Crackdown on ‘Rip-Off’ University Degrees May Cause Creative Industries Skills Shortage, Industry Body Warns
Naman Ramachandran The U.K. government’s plans to limit enrolment into so-called “rip-off” university degrees has met with pushback from Creative U.K., the independent network for the country’s creative industries. On Monday, the U.K. government announced plans where the Office for Students will be asked to limit the number of students universities can recruit onto courses that are “failing to deliver good outcomes for students.” “The government wants to make the system fairer for them, but also for taxpayers – who make a huge investment in higher education and are liable for billions of pounds in unrecovered tuition fees if graduate earnings are low,” a U.K. government statement said, which quotes numbers from the Office for Students showing that nearly three in 10 graduates do not progress into highly skilled jobs or further study 15 months after graduating and an Institute for Fiscal Studies estimation that one in five graduates would be better off financially if they hadn’t gone to university.