Media and politics and humanities and arts. These are all really important things that we should be trying to encourage more diversity in. And the problem is that if it’s then sort of held up and only sort of seen as approachable by students of privilege, that’s going to be a really big problem for us.
The cost of an arts degree is about to skyrocket in Australia. The government recently announced a massive overhaul of the pricing structures for university education starting next year. And the news about what’s happening with the humanities has caused some serious outrage. To get a sense of what’s actually going on here. I spoke to Rachel Clinigen. She’s a Junkie reporter who’s been following this story pretty closely, so, right. Can you tell me what’s happening right now and why everybody is suddenly talking about arts degrees?
– Yeah, so basically last week there was a huge announcement by the government about the university sector. So what they really want to be doing is trying to get more students to go into employable fields. So they think that means things like nursing, teaching, psychology, agriculture, things like that. But the way that they’re doing this is by making those degrees cheaper, which is great news, but they’re also making other degrees more expensive. And that’s been really bad news for humanities. So things like media, arts, politics, history, they gotta be pushed up into the highest price bracket, and they’ve gotten hit with our 113% price increase.
– Do you mind just quickly walking me through what the government’s logic is behind this?
– So basically, what the government wants to do is try to funnel students into more employable fields. So the things that they’re making cheaper to do this are things like nursing, psychology, teaching agriculture, science, and math, all those really practical subjects. So they say that these are the areas where they’ve got a little expected job growth, and they want to try to increase the graduate employment rate.
– And what’s the reaction been like online?
– Basically, it’s not being a good reaction. People calling it pretty shortsighted, but at the same time, they’re sadly not that surprised. This is the same government that hasn’t really been seen as valuing the arts, maybe the way that people think that they should. So, for example, late last year, they also scrapped the standalone arts department decided to merge it with transport, which was also really badly received. No one is saying that trying to improve graduate outcomes is a bad thing, but the way that they’re doing it by making it at the expense of other students is being really heavily criticized.
– There’s been a lot of commentaries online about the state of tertiary education in the ’70s and how that kind of applies here. Can you walk me through what that commentary is staying and how it reflects on the politicians involved?
– Definitely yeah. So basically, in Australia from 1974, up until 1989, university was completely free in Australia up until we introduced techs. So that basically means a whole generation of students got the advantage of being able to study whatever they wanted and not have the burden of a hex debt to come back to. And the thing is now a lot of those politicians in that generation are now the ones leading the country. So it’s seen as pretty hypocritical for them to try to increase the fees on something that they have no fees at all on, especially considering that a lot of our former prime ministers also studied arts degrees, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Malcolm Turnbull, Bob Hawke, they all benefited from studying art. So it’s kind of interesting to see now that these politicians aren’t valuing it.
– So there’s been a lot of commentary online about how this kind of reflects a sort of government conspiracy against the art sector. And a lot of people saying that it’s a sort of ideological warfare against the humanities. I mean, what do you make of those sorts of comments?
– I think it’s definitely interesting, and I understand why people would make those comments. When you look at the past actions of this government, they haven’t really been very calm with the art department. One of the things they did like last year was completely scrapped a standalone arts department and merged it with transport, which was really badly received. And then this year they were really heavily criticized for not extending the childcare allowance to freelances, which basically prolapse the art department. This is an industry that sort of more or less closed overnight, and they received no further government support. So it’s been really, really difficult for that industry to try and get back on its feet. And so I think it’s definitely a question to ask about the value that the government places in our arts.
– But when it comes down to it, what does all of this mean in practice, full perspective, art students, what are the real-world consequences of this decision going to be? To figure that out, I spoke to Joy Damousi, who’s the President of The Australian Academy of The Humanities.
– I think the timing’s poor. I think the way it’s been mapped out it’s really bad for students. It’s. I mean, I would really feel for students at the moment, especially in it is 11 to 12. It’s bad enough as it is with COVID when the government sort of saying, “Well, if you were thinking about doing a humanities degree, this has just gone up over 100%.” So many of the students would have already made decisions about the degree they want to do at university. Now, the government’s telling us all to go into certain areas. They’re encouraging people to do more maths, particularly more maths, more science areas. I get that that’s important, we need more people in those fields, but if you don’t like that area, or you’re not particularly interested in that area, you’ve made choices along the way to get into an arts degree or humanities degree. And you might not now have the requisite subjects to get into the science area. So it’s kind of going to catching students out, which I think is really bad.
– Damousi also pointed out that this change in Australia’s tertiary education system could have some pretty huge consequences for industries and how people learn to think in general.
– The message has to be. It’s a valuable and important skillset for any young person to have. And it gives them enormous flexibility about where they can actually get jobs, but also the message that sends to young people that this somehow is secondary degree, but we all suffer because those skills are so important in our collective sense of a smart and really sort of progressive society, to have those critical thinking skills, communication skills, human based-decision, making skills.
– Nobody knows quite yet how this overhaul is going to affect the university students, but the decision that has a lot of people seriously worried. A change like this could have some broad consequences. We could just see students taking on this massive amount of debt or avoiding the arts altogether, but even beyond university, deterring people away from the humanities has the potential to change what Australian society looks like in some unexpected and devastating ways.
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