Oh, for an arts degree!

Julia Horne

In September 2020, a month before the Job-Ready Graduates Higher Education Reform (JRG package) legislation was enacted, I interviewed the presidents of the two learned Australian academies of the humanities and social sciences about its impact on arts and social science degrees.¹ Each academy had submitted its response to the proposed legislation mounting a strong defence of the value of the humanities and social sciences as a basis for ‘job-ready’ degrees that made economic sense for Australia’s social and cultural wellbeing.

In answer to a question about how the humanities and social sciences expand and deepen understanding, both presidents were unequivocal about the distinctive perspectives the disciplines offer. They gave examples. What is the cause of the frequent mass death of fish in the Darling River? The science is clear, but analysing the social, legal and economic governance of water management that led to such disaster is a more complex task. Vaccinations as a way to live with COVID? Well, yes, in one sense. But humanities and social science perspectives revealed that ‘living with covid’—both before and after vaccination—was not solely a medical or scientific problem, but involved social, cultural, ethical and economic complexities the likes of which had not been seen in Australia for generations. They concluded that investment in humanities and social science degrees helps ensure future workforces are equipped with a variety of useful expertise.

The JRG package was widely criticised as an attack by the then Coalition government on the study of humanities and social science disciplines. It built on a populist claim that an arts and social science degree is dilettantish, even ‘woke’, does not lead to financially or intellectually rewarding employment and is an economic burden on society (though how or why is rarely explained).

For the first time in 70 years, the then Coalition federal government would, in real terms, contribute almost nothing to the cost of an undergraduate arts degree, effectively transferring the financial burden onto students and universities. The government wanted graduates to be ‘job-ready’. It redesigned the funding formula in order to encourage students to abandon certain courses—in fact, most of those in an arts and social science degree—in favour of the ‘national priority fields’ of engineering, science, teaching and healthcare.²

In universities, the humanities and social sciences fit within a Commonwealth funding cluster called ‘society and culture’. While the humanities and social sciences may have distinct methodological approaches, including the type and use of sources, nonetheless, the transferable skills and attributes of humanities and social science graduates are broadly the same. The Australian Academy of Humanities emphasises the ability to construct sophisticated, evidence-based arguments as well as the capacity to think critically and independently and strengthen cultural competency, while the Academy of the Social Sciences promotes high-level communication, problem-solving, innovation and emotional judgement. More pragmatically, most humanities graduates have at some point in their degree studied social science subjects such as sociology, political science, psychology or economics, while many social science graduates have studied subjects such as philosophy, history or a language.

The statistics for society and culture undergraduate subjects are illuminating. The single largest cohort of students to graduate are trained in the humanities and social sciences. In 2021, 25.4 per cent of total student load across the Australian university sector studied society and culture. The next largest cohort was health at 19.2 per cent nationally. All other cohorts, such as management and commerce, and the sciences, were under 15 per cent. And most cohorts, such as architecture, engineering, education, were under 10 per cent. Further, most of Australia’s 42 higher education institutions have more than 20 per cent student load in society and culture studies. And of these, eight universities have more than 30 per cent student load in society and culture.³ Arts and social science degrees are a significant focus of the Australian higher education sector.

While the JRG package initially increased funding for society and culture subjects, it did so by placing the financial burden on students (also on universities, but we do not know by how much). The government now only paid 7 per cent of government-determined fees incurred in most society and culture subjects, with students liable for 93 per cent (which most choose to pay through HELP/HECS). Yet the sector average for all degrees is 52 per cent paid by government and 48 per cent by the student. Further, universities incur a range of expenses in teaching degree courses that are not covered by the Commonwealth student contribution but are subsidised by universities through alternative revenue streams. Governments, it is fair to say, have almost entirely removed themselves from the funding of an arts and social sciences education.⁴

In effect, society and culture students form a significant privately funded cluster within public universities. The majority of this cohort are women, many of whom, for a variety of social and cultural reasons, will never achieve the average male earnings in their chosen career. Further, society and culture subjects are what many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students choose to study. By purposefully shaping an enclave of privately funded education within public universities, the JRG package has inadvertently targeted women and First Nations people, the very cohort who may least be able to afford hikes in student fee contributions, yet who are a crucial part of Australia’s workforce.

Despite ill-conceived assumptions, arts and social science graduates, which is a significant cohort, actually contribute to economic productivity and national wealth. In 2019, four months after graduation, 64.9 per cent of graduates with generalist arts and social science undergraduate degrees had full-time employment, which is not much lower than the smaller cohort of graduates with undergraduate medical degrees, of which 69.7 per cent were in full-time employment. Three years after graduation, the arts and social sciences cohort increased to 89.6 per cent in full-time employment, again, not much lower than medicine at 93.9 per cent.⁵

Could Australia survive without arts and social science graduates in its workforce? It is an interesting question. The sheer numbers suggest not. Sure, there is no specific ‘profession’ attached to an arts and social sciences degree, which makes it difficult to measure using government ‘industry’ categories, unlike the medical and engineering professions. Industry categories include ‘health care and social assistance’, ‘education and training’, ‘public administration and safety’, ‘retail’, and ‘professional, scientific and technical services’, along with ‘arts and recreation services’ and ‘information, media and telecommunications’. Anecdotally, we probably all know people with undergraduate arts and social sciences degrees who work in these industries. They are probably employed for good reasons, too, with the promise of a skill set that includes high-level communication, critical and independent thinking, problem-solving and evidence-based arguments. I will hazard a guess that that these industries rely on a strong cohort of ‘hidden’ employees with arts and social science degrees.

At the time of writing, the Labor government’s university accord review process was delivering its interim report. On ‘Job-Ready’ it had this to say: ‘It is clear the funding system, as changed through the JRG package, needs to be redesigned before it causes longterm and entrenched damage to Australian higher education.’⁶ Those are wise words. I would add that when governments choose to shape the workforce through higher education funding arrangements, they need arts and social science graduates to understand the impact of their actions.

1. 1 ‘Can the Humanities and Social Sciences Survive the COVID Crisis?’, History of University Life Live Broadcast 23 September 2020, produced with the assistance of the School of Humanities, University of Sydney, uploaded 18 April 2022, University of Sydney Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences YouTube channel, videos, bit.ly/3a1xWdw. The panellists included Professor Joy Damousi, president, Australian Academy of the Humanities, and Professor Jane Hall, president, Australian Academy of the Social Sciences.

2. 2 Tim Payne, ‘The 2020 Job-Ready Graduates Package and What It Means for Students’, in Australian Universities—A Conversation about Public Good, ed. Julia Horne and Matthew A.M. Thomas (Sydney: Sydney University Press, 2022), 163–77, doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv31svrqv.17.

3. 3 Department of Education, ‘Australian Universities Accord Discussion Paper’, Australian Government, Canberra, February 2023, 14–15, www.education.gov.au/australian-universities-accord/resources/australian-universities-accord-panel-discussion-paper.

4. 4 Payne, ‘The 2020 Job-Ready Graduates Package’, 166.

5. 5 Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching, ‘‘Medium-term Graduate outcomes in Australia’, 2022 Graduate Outcomes Survey—Longitudinal, Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching (Quilt)’, the Australian Government, October 2022, 8–9, www.qilt.edu.au/docs/default-source/default-document-library/2022-gos-l-national-report.pdf?sfvrsn=a3a778dc_8.

6. 6 Department of Education, ‘Australian Universities Accord Interim Report’, Australian Government, July 2023, 16, www.education.gov.au/australian-universities-accord/resources/accord-interim-report.