Creatives speak out against Rishi Sunak’s ‘rip-off’ degrees crackdown | UK News

Successful people working in the music industry have defended creative subjects in light of Rishi Sunak’s crackdown on ‘rip-off’ degrees.

The prime minister has been planning for more than a year now to scrap university degrees which do not improve students’ earning potential.

Although he has never given specific examples, the latest figures calculated by Oxford Learning College from last year suggested historical, philosophical and religious studies had the lowest employment rate.

And design, creative and performing arts had the lowest median graduate salary of £20,000.

Mr Sunak told the Conservative Party conference, in Manchester last month, in his keynote speech: ‘Labour pursued the false dream of 50% of children going to university and abandoned apprenticeships.

‘This assumption that the only route to success was the university route was one of the great mistakes of the last 30 years.

‘It led to thousands of young people being ripped off by degrees that did nothing to increase their employability or earnings potential.

‘So we are stopping universities from enrolling students on courses that do nothing for their life chances. Under us no more rip-off degrees.’

Beth McCarthy, a London-based independent artist originally from York, is one musician speaking out against these comments.

A TikTok success story, the singer has had more than 10 million views and more than 100,000 videos have been made using her sounds in the app.

Beth, 26, told Metro.co.uk: ‘There’s so little space for most roles in the creative industry to be nurtured in typical schools or universities.

‘Considering how important the arts are to our economy and livelihoods, we should be creating more opportunities for education in these spheres, not less…’

She said the focus on earning potential and employability completely disregards anything creative as a ‘serious, valuable or legitimate career path’.

‘Success in the creative arts is not binary, there’s not one set way to do it or even one set way to quantify “success” and therefore you can’t compare the outcome of creative courses versus classic university degrees,’ added Beth, who successfully auditioned for The Voice at the age of just 16.

‘So much of creativity can’t be taught on paper or in books, and creative courses allow people to be further educated in less “academic” subjects whilst still taking into account the need for real-life experience in these roles.’

Being part of the first school year which had to remain in education between the ages of 16 and 18, Beth believes that without the option of creative courses which she studied at Access Creative College, she would have been ‘forced’ to spend years studying irrelevant subjects.

‘I really believe that having my aspirations taken seriously at this early stage is what led me to have a successful and financially viable career now,’ she said.

‘The UK is home to so much talent and some of the greatest legacies in the arts were made here. To not support the creative industry means losing any potential of that happening in the future which would be a huge loss to the UK economy and culture.’

The latest government figures show the creative industries contributed £109 billion to the UK economy and provided three million jobs in 2021 in areas such as TV, fashion and video games.

The UK was also the fifth-largest exporter of creative services in 2020, spending an estimated £4.3 billion on high-end film productions that year, according to the British Film Institute.

Cristy Taviner, who works for Festival Republic representing some of the country’s biggest events including Wireless and Reading and Leeds, claimed the industry can offer ‘a very lucrative career’, especially for freelancers.

She told Metro.co.uk: ‘From what I have experienced, people who are joining creative courses are looking to develop their skills and experience and enter into a career that they might have thought was not even possible.

‘Therefore I don’t think there is such thing as “rip-off degrees” – just because when you finish them you may not be earning a six-figure salary, this is not what everyone’s ultimate goal is.’

Cristy, who studied music business at Access Creative College, said her course helped her get a ‘foot in the door’ in her community.

She explained: ‘I found the course that was right for me, it allowed me to build up my admin, planning and communication skills all within a creative atmosphere which was such a big break for me. It made me have more fire in my belly as I now earn money while doing what I love.’

Cristy stressed the importance of the creative industry not just for work, but also for leisure.

‘We just have to look at the strikes that are currently going ahead in Hollywood to understand how important the creative industry is,’ she added.

‘If the creative industry isn’t a career path for someone it is something we all participate in doing in our downtime, reading books, doing crafts, listening to podcasts, watching TV, or going to watch a performance.

‘These are all things that are born in the creative industry and are so important for our mental health and well-being.’

Nathan Loughran, the director of the new Aldgate campus of Access Creative College, told Metro.co.uk: ‘I think sometimes there’s a myth or misunderstanding about creative education.

‘People see it as students doing things that don’t lead to employment, but it’s one of the biggest exports in the whole of the country at the moment so it is a massive business with careers within it.

‘In terms of that space I think what’s difficult for some people to understand is the career paths are not as linear, or as straight-forward as they are in some vocational areas – for example, an engineering or construction course, or apprenticeship pathway with a very clear job at the end of it.

‘The creative industry isn’t quite like that – many people working often end up being freelance, or setting up their own businesses, whether they are working in TV, film, music, games, and so on. It can be a very varied career which is hard to quantify in that way.’

He explained how Access Creative College is ‘very vocationally focused’ but ‘strikes the balance’ by providing students with a wider set of skills to prepare them for university or employment.

Nathan thinks there is ‘definitely value in education for education’s sake’.

‘We are in danger of losing sight of education for the love of it, the joy of learning for the joy of learning,’ he said.

‘No knowledge is useless, in my view, and sometimes there’s a fixation on the idea of whether this is going to get someone a job or what earnings they could get a result of that.’

Access Creative College, which has several famous alumni including Ed Sheeran and Nova Twins, aims to support talented students from underprivileged backgrounds.

Nathan said the college hopes to impact the growth of the sector, increase diversity in the sector and ‘change what the creative industry looks like’.

‘I’ve always thought, when we’re children we’ll all encouraged to paint and draw, make music and things without thinking of it other than something that’s good for our well-being and our development,’ he concluded.

‘But there comes a point, quite early in children’s development, where they are told unless they are going to make a career doing it, it’s pointless, which I think is a real shame.’

The Labour Party has previously criticised the Conservative Party for failing to support the creative sector, after the House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee warned the government’s current approach ‘is complacent and risks jeopardising the sector’s commercial impact’.

But the latest round of the Cultural Investment Fund was announced in March with some 70 beneficiaries set to receive £60 million this year, and a ‘flexi-job apprenticeship offer’ will see a £7 million fund to support flexible employment patterns and project-based working.

The Office for Students is expected to start limiting the number of pupils universities can recruit onto courses which are failing to deliver ‘good outcomes’, by tracking numbers of graduates who progress onto high-skilled employment or further study, and whether they actually complete their degrees.

Business and management courses are currently said to be under particular scrutiny.

A Department for Education spokesperson said: ‘Our reforms will help more young people choose the path that is right for them and grow our economy.  

‘There are lots of factors that determine a good university education, but students who enter higher education should expect to complete their course and progress to skilled employment or further study after they graduate.

‘These measures will address the disparity of outcomes for students and tackle individual courses that don’t support students to give them the best start in life.’

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