8/13/2019 Editorial: Austerity education won't sustain our college

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TRINITY NEWS

Est  1953

towards some revival of the collegiate spirit,

which modern conditions tend to discourage

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HEAD TO HEAD: CAO TRENDS

“In your spare time you can be aProust reader while sipping wine”

FÉIDHLIMMCGOWAN

KATE OLIVER

AUSTERITY EDUCATION

WON’T SUSTAIN OUR

COLLEGESTRIP AWAY all the optional extras - prestige,parties, a heady dose of pretentiousness - andit becomes apparent that university educationis about personal enrichment. For those whoopt to study practical, career-oriented subjects,that’s material enrichment in the shape of solid

 job prospects and a well-trodden career path.But choosing an arts degree means enrichmentin a more profound and personal sense.

An arts degree exposes you to things whichyou might never have otherwise experienced:ideas which you would never have been able to

formulate, books which make you feel in waysyou couldn’t have imagined before, authorsand lecturers who challenge you to understandthem and engage with them. And while all thisis going on and your brain is being crammed fullof new concepts and theories, you’re surround-ed by other people undergoing the same experi-ence whose views and reactions will be hugelyinfluential in shaping your own.

Even the way you learn is different: insteadof learning off details or becoming au fait withchoice facts, you have to actually engage withthe material you’re being bombarded with andask “Why?” Analytical thinking is clearly tre-mendously valuable. It’s relevant to any careeryou can think of, but it also has implicationsfor everyday life. The ability to engage with andinterrogate a text, whether that’s an image, thewritten word, a film or a piece of music, is easilyconverted into the ability to question the worldaround you. A degree in science or engineeringmay equip you with the pragmatic analytic abil-

ity to break down cells or analyse the construc-tion of bridges, but how often do you need to dothat in your downtime? How well will it equipyou to navigate your interpersonal relation-ships, assess the messages the media is sendingyou, or to formulate a personal code of right and

wrong? Life is made up of so much more thancold hard scientific fact, and an arts degree pro-vides you with ways of evaluating and handlingthat complexity.

All of that is certainly wonderful, but it’s alsodifficult. Critical reasoning is hard. It is mucheasier to just sit down and watch another episodeof ‘Gossip Girl’. That’s why it’s worth studyingarts within the structure of a university. No onewould ever say that people who haven’t done anarts degree can’t understand literature, appreci-ate great art or are inherently incapable of a high

level of critical thought, because it simply isn’ttrue; but it is true that these are skills which aredifficult to acquire and require practice. Unlessyou’re Blair Waldorf, you’re going to have to geta job after you graduate. You will eventuallyhave to think about things like project manage-ment or patent development or R&D, but thereare virtually no other circumstances in whichyou will be forced to write 2000 words aboutwhether Aristotle was a misogynist (which, forthe record, he was). You will eventually acquirethe practical qualifications which enable you toget some sort of job, because you’ll have to - andas a university graduate, no matter what yourdegree, the odds are already slanted in your fa-vour - but you won’t ever again be forced into afamiliarity with Marxist criticism of Jane Aus-ten. Once you’re on the career ladder, it becomesmuch less likely that you’re going to get off it inorder to immerse yourself in Wittgenstein.

It’s so saccharine and clichéd to say this butit’s during our college years that we mould our-

selves into who we’ll be as adults. With that inmind, it seems short-sighted at best to eschew becoming familiar with the culture which sur-rounds you and inculcating yourself with a ca-pacity for reflection, in order to get a little bit ofa head start making money.

THE FOLLOWING statement seems to be ta- boo: “Students should choose a course that willgive them the best chance of getting a good job.”It’s just common sense. What is the point in get-ting a degree if all you are qualified to do at theend of it is open beer bottles with your teeth?Future earning potential shouldn’t be the onlyfactor in choosing your course. If it was, we’d all

 be doing, perish the thought, Actuarial Math-ematics.

We’ve all heard the following advice from acareer guidance teacher at some point: “Followyour passions”. However not all students havesufficient genuine interest in their “favourite”subject to justify studying it for four years atthe expense of other courses that may prove to

 be more beneficial in the real world. Of courseit’s worth pursuing an arts degree if you aretruly passionate about the field and are will-ing to put in the work to get a 1.1 or a 2.1. Butif you’re one of the many students whose realinterests lie outside the realm of academia andyou want to go to college anyway because it’sthe “done thing”, why not pick something a tadmore employer friendly, like undenominatedScience? You’ve got nothing to lose really. Thecurrent CAO trends confirm this drift towardsmore career-focused courses. No one is suggest-

ing students around the country suddenly wantto be biologists when previously they cravedthe bright lights of Sociology and History. No,they’re simply playing the percentages in thegame called “pick the right course” like an outhalf does in rugby.

  It’s true that nobody can perfectly predictwhere the jobs will lie in the future. Ten yearsago not many would have believed architecturewould one day be on the degree blacklist. Wecan, nevertheless, make a pretty good guess.Cloud computing, nanotechnology and renew-able energy systems are just some of the next

 big things. No prizes for guessing what sort ofdegrees those sorts of companies will primar-ily be looking for. Maths graduates have always

had a wide range of prospects. Health Sciencegraduates are in high demand worldwide. Onthe other hand, there is a dearth of viable job op-portunities for those with arts degrees. Fancy aspot of teaching? If so, get in line. Thousands ofothers have the same idea. And you can’t jumpthe queue unless you’re an inter county GAAplayer.

  Choosing a career-orientated course andgetting a “proper education” (i.e. learning tothink for yourself, broadening your horizonsetc.) are not mutually exclusive. The librarianin the Usher won’t kick you out if she finds outyou really study Theoretical Physics. In yourspare time you can be a closet Proust reader ordeconstruct Jane Eyre while sipping wine if youso please. Or have a look at the Broad Curricu-lum and see if there’s any foreign language thattake’s your fancy. There’s plenty of ways to stayin touch with your more creative side if yourcourse choice seems a bit uninspiring.

It’s not as easy for students in arts-relatedcourses to foray into the more technical fields.Public libraries don’t stock the equipment nec-essary to examine human DNA, and any unau-thorised cadaver examinations will result in, atthe very least, being defriended by the under-taker on Facebook.

Lastly, no article on education would be com-plete without a mention of emigration. Let’sface it, 50% of us (at least) will probably end upshipping up for Boston or Brisbane. So whendeciding what to study here, it might be worthkeeping in mind the fact that some degrees trav-el better than others. It’s hit or miss whether anarts degree will prove an advantage overseas.While a degree in French will obviously godown well in Quebec, the local mining compa-nies will be equally impressed by your mono-glot friend’s Earth Science degree.

In short, follow your passion, or else do some-thing useful. And if your passion happens to

 be calculating insurance premiums, well thenyou’re really on to a winner.

20  EDITORIAL

TRINITY NEWS

“University education is all about aprofound personal enrichment”

THE HALCYON days of Hibernian education are welland truly over. The erstwhile acceleration of Irishuniversities in the eyes of the world – all for a fee of lessthan €1000 – has halted in the face of austerity. Withstudents facing a registration fee of over double thatin 2008, the latest QS rankings reveal that educationalstandards are nevertheless in overall decline. As the

importance of university funding slips in the minds ofgovernment ministers, so do our institutions’reputations.

 Just 2 years have passed since Trinity College wasranked among the global top 50 elite universities. Now,the effects of funding cuts and a recruitment moratoriumare evident. Admittedly, a fall of 16 places according tothe QS rankings might not appear to be a radical symp-tom of falling standards. However, it indicates a widermalaise among Ireland’s fiscally-challenged universities.The government has been naïve to assume that educa-tional standards will remain high if the funds are notforthcoming.

Trinity, with its selective intake and long history ofacademic excellence, is no exception. Provost PatrickPrendergast attributed lack of funds to the downwardmovement in rankings for Ireland’s universities. Trinity,he says, receives just 66% of that available to the

university’s counterparts in the UK. Speaking to the IrishTimes, Prendergast commented that Irish education facesa “speedy and inexorable decline, unless the fundingcrisis is addressed by introducing fees for those who canafford to pay.” Once UK universities start charging up to€9,000 a year for a degree course, our universities willcertainly be ill equipped to compete.

Prendergast’s comment, while inexplicit, representsa growing sentiment in the university sector: Irelandneeds fees. In this climate, it seems, tuition fees are theonly option to sustain higher education funding.

There must be a viable alternative to the currentsituation facing students in Ireland. Undergraduates livein the worst of both worlds: they must pay fees (by an-other name) of €2,000, and the measures to aid paymentare inadequate. Most students will be required to paythis money upfront. Even UK students, some of whomwill face debts of £50,000, will not be required to pay apenny until they earn over £21,000. For some, this may

mean never paying their student loan. In all cases, anyremaining debt is cleared after 30 years.

While the incoming British fee system seems com-paratively astronomical, the government could learn animportant lesson from education policy across the sea.A system in which every student, regardless of familyincome, is entitled to a student loan, is unequivocally fair.It means that both poorer students and those that wouldnot normally qualify for financial aid are not faced withan immediate bill for their studies.

The government and student population have beenplaying an ongoing game of tug-and-war on the fees is-sue: one attempts to implement the ineffable measure,whilst the other postulates and protests until the for-mer’s concerns for re-election give way.

Now is the time for decisive action: a sustainable edu-cation funding system that treats fees fairly and honestly.The status quo simply cannot uphold quality education.

Instead of invoicing its students, the Irish governmentneeds to invest in them. It’s time for our leaders to scrapthe electioneering and implement the inevitable.

Whilst silly season may not have matched up to its name in the globalnews this summer, its end marks the commencement of another yearof student publishing. This includes another volume of Trinity News -which I am delighted to be editing in its 58th year.

More avid readers may have noticed on this page the text belowour newspaper’s name calling for a “revival of the collegiate s pirit,which modern conditions tend to discourage.” These are t he words ofAnthony Bolchover in this newspaper’s first editorial. Written in 1953,Bolchover’s observation nevertheless remains apt.

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