Are ‘Mickey Mouse degrees’ a waste of time and money?

‘Mickey Mouse degree’ now commonly refers to any degree the user deems lesser-than, worthless, or generally ‘useless’ to society. While most commentators use it in a light-hearted sense, this perception of a wide range of degrees can be elitist and harmful. The most common defendant of the label ‘Mickey Mouse degree’ is Media Studies, but the term has been more haphazardly applied to degrees such as liberal arts, philosophy, sociology, and physical education, and increasingly carelessly thrown at English literature.

The discourse around this topic has led to the fashioning of a ‘culture war’ between the arts, humanities, and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and maths) subjects. As Barbara Ellen pointed out in 2021 (in response to the Office for Students’s proposal to halve funding for arts courses): “It seems clear that arts subjects are being placed in false competition with these other valuable areas to reframe an outrage as practicality and necessity. […] When it comes to the arts versus medicine, science, or computing, it’s not a question of what you choose or even how you choose. Rather, why are we being asked to do so?”

This determination of ‘usefulness’ by economic value is detracting from other important factors

For over two decades, ‘soft’ degrees have been valued as lesser-than by the Government in comparison to their STEM counterparts. Former Higher Education Minister Margaret Hodge in the 2003 Labour Government controversially described ‘Mickey Mouse degrees’ as those with “less-rigorous” content, “where the degree itself may not have huge relevance in the labour market”. The more recent Conservative Government under Rishi Sunak re-defined these courses as “rip-off university degrees” that “fail to deliver good outcomes, with high drop-out rates and poor employment prospects.” In an aim to make the system “fairer for taxpayers,” they wished to cut recruitment to courses with fewer post-graduating job prospects and lower average earnings.

A 2018 study revealed that students studying degrees with “strong vocational links” such as medicine, dentistry, and nursing had a better chance of ending up in “well-paid, skilled jobs” six months post-graduating. Professor Madeleine Atkins, chief executive for the Higher Education Funding Council for England at the time, believed this data would “help students have realistic expectations of their likely career progression.” Atkins identified that this data is “really important” for A-Level students to access. Career prospects are undeniably a strong element of a student’s decision-making process and are therefore becoming increasingly fore-fronted in university league tables.

The quantification and ranking of degrees by their ‘graduate prospects’ is undoubtedly a relevant piece of data to have, but this determination of ‘usefulness’ by economic value detracts from other important factors such as student satisfaction, personal interests, and academic variety. Attempting to shoehorn more creative young people into STEM A-Levels and degrees due to economic benefits is detrimental to long-term social structures that are dependent on diverse perspectives and interests. As Barbara Ellen suggests, “If we keep allowing this to happen, there will be an atrophying of the national soul the like of which the UK has never seen.”

Creative degrees also undoubtedly provide ‘useful’ skills to graduates entering the workforce. Martin Dove, professor at Queen Mary University of London, stated in 2021: “On top of vocational training, what the UK desperately needs is people who can think critically and analytically, who can use their imagination, and who can communicate. We get such people when they are allowed to study the subjects they really enjoy because all subjects will teach such important and transferable skills.”

Empowering young boys to be passionate about subjects like literature and performing arts is equally important

Arts students still struggle to be taken seriously in academic environments, told their courses are ‘soft options’ for people ‘not smart enough’ to take STEM subjects. This is often rooted in misogyny: the association of arts with femininity and STEM with masculinity, the suggestion that these subjects are ‘easy’ and taken to avoid rigorous academics, and the trivialising of one’s passion for the subject, all undermine how arts subjects are perceived. Then-sixteen-year-old Orli Vogt-Vincent recalled in 2016 a male peer describing “arty” A-Level choices as “the soft subjects […] the easy ones: the stupid girls in bottom set take them […] Dance [is pointless and] it shouldn’t even be a subject.” Orli felt “constantly baffled by people who believe they can define what is of academic value,” with peers confused that she would want to take Dance at GCSE despite being “like, clever.”

Though many efforts have been taken to promote ‘Women in STEM,’ empowering young boys to be passionate about subjects like literature and performing arts is equally important. As put by Laura McInerney in 2014: “The schools minister [Liz Truss] has referred on several occasions to the fact that 40% of students who take Maths A-level are female. She is at pains to point out how disastrous this is. […] But boys only make up 29% of English A-level students – why isn’t that deemed a “problem”? Apparently, only girls deserve that label.”

Ultimately, the possibilities for variety and specification in higher education cannot be lost. Without ‘Mickey Mouse’ degrees, universities are at risk of becoming too specialist, too restrictive in what they offer, and therefore less diverse in the young people they welcome into their cohort. As put by Vogt-Vincent: “To the teachers, the parents, the Government: expand your definition of what is possible for the children you know. Let them make their own decisions, let them be inspired and live in the present. Let them have a real, unrestricted education.”