The Non-Courses Report 2007

The TaxPayers’ Alliance has compiled Britain’s first ever list of university “non-courses” – university degrees that lend the respectability of scholarly qualifications to non-academic subjects – and calculated their annual cost to students and taxpayers.

The huge expansion in student numbers in recent years, encouraged by the Government’s 50 per cent higher education target, has resulted in a proliferation of different degree courses on offer.

Unfortunately, a number of these new courses are of dubious academic merit, offering training better learned on-the-job.  In the worst cases, they offer neither intellectual stimulation nor any improvement in employment prospects. 

The cost of these “non-courses” falls on tw o groups: students, who are diverted from useful training and work experience by the lure of a degree; and taxpayers, who still pay for most of the cost of educating every student, despite university tuition fees.

Download The Non-Courses Report 2007 (PDF)

The key findings of this report are:

• “Non-courses” are costing taxpayers over £40 million a year. 
• If the £40 million cost of “non-courses” was spent on other undergraduates, it could cut their fees by £104 a year, or pay for a pint of beer a week for each student.
• There are 401 “non-courses” across Britain in the 2007-08 academic year.
• 89 different institutions offer one or more “non-courses”.
• The institution with the greatest number of “non-courses” on offer is the University of Derby, which offers 41 “non-courses”.
• In our judgement, top of the list for “non-courses” is “Outdoor Adventure with Philosophy” at Marjon College in Plymouth.

Comments

[Thersites]

Well done on your report about the many non-courses that fill our Universities. It is depressing to realise how much money is wasted on some of the absurdities you mention, not least because that money could certainly be better used elsewhere.

My only complaint is that you were a bit hard on Staffordshire University (Stop Motion Animation and Puppet Making BA) and UCCA (BA Hons Modelmaking), as their 'offending' courses do in fact offer a range of skills and training comparable to most other art, craft and design degrees, as do UCCA's Silversmithing degrees.

Perhaps you were alerted to them by their unusual subject matter, but that is not in itself a reason to stick the boot in. And at the very least, they sound much more fun than three years of Baking Technology.

Still, you can be forgiven when millions are wasted on Equine Journalism and Fire Safety degrees.

[Aye Up]

What a complete load of tosh! Your article or more so report, I find it rather odd that in constant use for your "sources" is The Telegraph or more astutely put.... The Torygraph!

Wake up! You even list yourself for Fashion Buying degree at Manchester Metropolitan University consists of Marketing Management, Computer Aided Design, Business Management, Data Management Systems.

Does the title of the course content(s) not imply that it is in fact a business degree? It actually contains academic study, which you seemed to have overlooked.

Your article seems more about propaganda than real hard facts. Thank god we live in a country that doesn't believe half the tosh right wing politics throws out!

[Disgusted]

What a complete and utter load of guff. Firstly if those 2591 odd students didn't do one of these courses they would study something else, so there would be no savings. Secondly not all graduates (even with so called proper degrees such as science or IT) go into careers related to their subject so there is little to back your argument there either. You seem to have forgotten its the act of going to university and learning in that environment that employers look for, not necessarily the subject. After all those who wrote this article probably did Politics at University 10-20 years ago - everyone else back then thought Politics was a non-course. Thirdly - the number of 401 non-courses seems to have been come up with rather creatively. Look at Adventure Course Management at the University of Gloucester - the course appears 13 times, because its a joint degree with another subject. That doesn't mean there are 13 different versions of the course you idiots. And what do you have in for Equine management. Do you have any idea how much equine related businesses generate for this country? Many times more than the savings you propose by removing the courses. The majority of these courses you've picked on are teaching needed and valuable skills - if you had a look at the sylabus you will find they teaching key business, management, IT and other skills as well, all packaged up into a specialist package. Also the majority of the internal sub courses will be being taught to other degree students at the same time - so actually trying to calculate the savings of removing these courses are nowhere near as simple as you have made out. It would have been more worthwhile to look at the number of specialist teaching hours a course and use that to work out any savings - I'm sure you'll find that the figure would be nearer 10% of what you've quoted. One final thing for you to ponder - imagine sending your kid on a school adventure/activity weekend. Would you rather have the person running it a degree qualified adventure management graduate who's worked on a course written by industry and no doubt hands on experience and is fully qualified in health and safety, equipment management, business management and is doing things by the book - or some young person who's has a one day NVQ course and on the job training because they couldn't get a qualification at university because the course isn't run? Think about that whilst sitting in your ivory tower.

Get real - this sort of political point scoring guff is not real news. Go away and research properly - then come back to us.

[Erik]

I agreee. There are FAR too many non-degrees.

But there are far too many drop-outs too.

Alas, I was one of them - finishing only 2 of my 3yrs in "BSc Applied Electronics", but they did offer me 60k in 1997 to leave Uni, and head straight into my chosen industry. Sadly, this was not the case for the others costing the UK 300M a year as drop-outs.

Nice job of exposing all the non-degrees though... 10/10. Keep up the good work.

[Barrie redfern]

I never knew all these degree courses existed. I do not doubt that information can be conveyed about such subjects but to elevate their status to degree level would seem ridiculous. I am sure that many courses must contain a large amount of pseudo-intellectual babble in order to fill their three year duration. Perhaps course lengths should be reduced and alternative titles awarded. Otherwise degrees are devalued to nothing more than the bogus qualifications purchased online from America! Hey, that's not a bad idea. Go and get good practical experience somewhere and then award yourself a fancy "paper" title for all your hard work. Just think of all the money it would save everyone.

[Christian Haselwimmer]

What a load of BS!
£40 million, gosh golly...
What is wrong with a university education for the sake of a university education: hell, the students pay for it so why can't they decide to take a turf management course....after all that is they market at work is it not....if people didn't want to do these courses then they wouldn't exist.

[Christian Haselwimmer]

What a load of BS!
£40 million, gosh golly...
What is wrong with a university education for the sake of a university education: hell, the students pay for it so why can't they decide to take a turf management course....after all that is they market at work is it not....if people didn't want to do these courses then they wouldn't exist.

[Bob Key]

Well done to you, TPA, for bringing to light the (sadly) growing trend of admitting young people to university to read such nonsense.

Those here defending Fashion Buying are too easily fooled by course descriptions, which inevitably try to make a worthless course sound creditable. "Computer aided design", in the context of a Fashion Buying degree, probably refers to searching for handbags on EBay.

[Mike G]

In the interests of full disclosure, I demand that the report authors publish their full academic records, including full details of "option" courses taken at school, sixth form/college, and university (if they attended).

[Jo Wyles]

I have to disagree although I think there are MANY pointless degress you have most of them wrong in your list! Did you know the Equine industry is one of the fastest growing industries in the country? Do you also realise the importance of having trained professional dealing with the food chain process from farmer to shop? No because you dont look past the end of your nose, you are VERY shortsighted. The degrees you should have included are things like sociology, ancient history and fine art, all degrees which do not have any relevance to any sort of career, whereas the ones you have picked on do. Did you know some of theses degrees involve only a couple of hours a week work? Yet these students still get the same amount of student loan? Get your facts straight before you go accusing people of being on pointless degrees!

[Mike G]

Also, it is noteworthy that the report authors do not indicate the level to which these courses have been accredited - I believe that many of them are offered at HND level, which is entirely appropriate for more vocational courses.

[Shakeel Suleman]

I have just skimmed read the main report, but can someone- perhaps from the Alliance- confirm if all the courses listed are offered at degree level and are not short courses or modules attached to some other course?

[Vindico]

Thanks for helping to expose the sham-degree culture. If people finance a course themselves then i have no issue what they choose to do, but if the taxpayer is expected to lend a helping had then they can go swivel!

[Andy Topping]

Non degrees? whatever next, non-sensical websites? Non reports, promoting a Non researched report..

I think whoever did this may have benefited from going to university and maybe took a course in ' writing balanced reports based on fact, rather than pandering to the daily mail reading immigrant hating single mum condeming middle classes BSC at the university of teeside.'

but then we know the people who write these sorts of things wouldn't dare step foot in one of the new univeristies

[Anthony Fitzgerald - Careers Adviser]

You are a conservative Conservative organisation so by nature you will not embrace change. Do some research yes, don't look for some anecdotal evidence, just because the whole question of what is academic and what are skills has become more complex is what this is all about.
New degree courses meet labour market needs which is more than I can say for History at Bristol or PPE at Oxford - a great way to flex your brains at the cost of the taxpayer but not really providing any useful transferable skills for the labour market. Get 21st century get real and try to find real evidence rather than Daily Mail evidence.

[Graham Spencer]

You seem to target many land-based qualifications in your list - horticulture, equine management, floristry, golf and turf management. These are large and serious industries that are desperately short of young people with industry-specific qualifications. Perhaps your report authors should spend a little time interviewing the leaders of these industries (perhaps the relevant trade bodies) to find out if there is a demand in businesses up and down the country for people with these qualifications. Maybe you would find then that these courses are not such a waste as you perceive.

[John Moorcraft]

How can Manchester Metropolitan University be both number 23 and 25 in your list of 91 educational institutions offering non courses and Salford University be both number 84 and 89. I assume the double counting of these universities has led to some of the subsequent analysis being slightly skewed?

Could I therefore (somewhat tongue in cheek) suggest to the TPA they employ somebody with a BA in Proofreading before publishing reports in the future!

[Peter]

John, thanks for pointing that out. The institutional table in the appendix was subsequent to everything else, so the research and analysis won't be skewed, but it is worth correcting that table.

[John Moorcraft]

Good stuff. The typing error just amused me Peter so I thought I would point it out (sorry mate!). The actual report is excellent and I agree with the vast majority of what is stated. Young adults (in my opinion) would be far better off in many cases if they had the option of on the job training or undertaking apprenticeships rather then wasting their time and money on a degree course they either fail to complete or which, if successfully finished, is of little worth in the job market. Still, as somebody who has spent 7 years at university getting a Politics BA, MA and PhD (hopefully), I suppose people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones!

[Tim Roll-Pickering]

What are London Guildhall and the University of North London doing as separate entries? They merged to form London Metropolitan over half a decade ago.

[Davey]

In the report, it is argued that BSc degrees should not be offered in subjects that are not science at all. So why aren't all the BSc degrees in Theology on offer across the country on the list too?

Your report seems to forget that what is on offer in universities is driven by the market. Courses which don't attract students close down. If scientists were given a higher profile in this country, and were respected and portrayed in a positive light (rather than treated as geeks), and were paid better, then perhaps more 18 year olds would be attracted to degrees in those subjects. But we live in a culture where the most revered and idolised are football players, pop stars and "celebrities" who are rich and famous simply because they were on Big Brother, or (claimed to have) slept with a married footballer, or are the girlfriend of a footballer.

So don't blame the universities, blame the culture in which they have to survive.

[Michael]

Tables A2 and A3 also disagree with one another. Some universities described in A2 as offering only one 'non-degree' are listed multiple times in A3.

[Tim Greening-Jackson]

The non-courses report was spot-on, and confirms what I have thought (as an employer) for the past several years. The entire currency of the degree has been devalued by the government's barking targets with respect to keeping illiterate and innumerate children off the dole for a few years.

One question, though. Table A2 (The Full List of 91 Institutions Offering Non-Courses) lists Manchester Metropolitan University twice (places 23 & 25). Is this for a reason, or have you just not bothered proof-reading the report properly?

[Philip]

I can see from the universities mentioned on the list that your organisation is probably one of those who wanted to keep universities for the elite and did not want polytechnics offering degrees to be thought of as universities. Many of the courses you list as non-courses just expose your ignorance of the real world and the skills and knowledge needed these days. For example, what is wrong with a degree in baking technology management? Do you honestly think the vast quantities of bakery goods are produced by people in aprons slaving away, kneading and pounding dough? No - this area requires management, planning, innovation, logistics, scientific knowledge to ensure quality and safety, etc.

Perhaps you think that only degrees from Oxbridge in Classics, PPE, etc are worthwhile and that the others wanting to study at university in other areas should be disregarded.

These "non-courses" would have been developed carefully with plenty of input from the industry which require these types of graduates and are not the product of a whim or fancy.

Your report is a product of old-fashioned elitism, a narrow view of present day UK life and an academically flawed and biased approach to research in this area.

[Peter]

Thanks to the eagle-eyed commenters above for pointing out some things that needed to be corrected in the appendix. Table A2 has now been updated in the report.