Monday, August 08, 2022

What Does It Have To Do With You?

Rishi Sunak won't be our next Prime Minister. Despite his very best efforts, he just isn't awful enough for the Tories. A shame - although he is truly, truly awful, at least I wouldn't be concerned about him accidentally kicking off World War 3.

Rishi's latest pitch is to crack down on 'bad' degrees - the ones that don't raise income potential. It's a classic Tory talking point, sadly just too little too late.

But...

Leaving aside the question of how you define a 'bad' degree, leaving aside the problem that qualifications in nursing and teaching would be included in those that reduce income potential, and indeed leaving behind the massive societal benefits of having an educated populace, there is another issue:

University education in England is not free. The students who are at university studying for these 'bad' degrees are paying tens of thousands of pounds for the privilige. (That's one of the very worst legacies of the Blair government, but that's another rant.)

That being the case, it's not the government's business whether those reduce income potential or not. The market has spoken, and the Tories, of all people, should be respecting that.

So, really, what does it have to do with them?

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