In a development that has sent shivers of existential dread down the spines of poetry undergraduates everywhere, the Department for Education has released its latest ranking of university degrees by median earnings. The report, a cold statistical shower for anyone who ever dared to study art history, reveals that the golden ticket to financial security is, predictably, a degree in medicine. Or economics. Or law. In other words, anything that doesn't involve interpreting a Rothko or writing a sonnet about a sad pigeon.
Let us pause to savour the bleak comedy of this ranking. Medicine, the report tells us, earns graduates a median salary of £52,000 five years after graduation. Economics, £40,000. Law, £38,000. Meanwhile, creative arts graduates are left to subsist on a diet of ramen noodles and bitter recriminations, their median salary just £22,000. That is not a living wage. That is a survival strategy.
But here is the kicker, the satirical cherry on this dystopian cake. The very same government that publishes this ranking has been slashing funding for arts programmes and humanities departments across the country. It is like a cruel parent who first tells you that your dream of being a clown is worthless, then burns your clown shoes. The message is clear: study something that makes money, or else. Or else you will be forced to move back in with your parents and listen to them sigh loudly every time you walk past the fridge.
And let us not forget the gentle irony of 'urging students to choose wisely'. As if teenagers making life decisions after three pints of cider and a crippling fear of student debt are in any position to apply wisdom. The entire system is a game of roulette where the house always wins. You pick a degree, you rack up a debt that would make a small Caribbean nation weep, and then you pray that the economy doesn't implode before you hit the job market. Wonderful.
But wait, there is more. The report also reveals that the gender pay gap among graduates is alive and well. Five years after graduation, men earn £3,000 more than women on average. So even if you do choose wisely, as a woman, you are still playing on hard mode. The report does not offer advice on how to fix this. Perhaps the Department for Education is waiting for a groundswell of righteous anger to spontaneously manifest as policy. Stranger things have happened.
So what is a poor student to do? The answer, according to this report, is to abandon all passions, ignore the siren call of the humanities, and pursue a degree in something that will make you rich enough to afford a therapist to deal with the crushing boredom of your chosen profession. Or, alternatively, you could take a gap year, travel the world, find yourself, and then return to a job market that has been automated away by robots. Your choice.
In conclusion, the Department for Education has handed down its latest commandment: thou shalt not study poetry, lest thou starve. And as we shuffle towards the corporate trough, let us remember the words of the great philosopher Homer Simpson: 'If you don't like your job, you don't go on strike. You just go in every day and do it really half-assed.' That, my friends, is wisdom you won't find in any university ranking.
