'Mickey Mouse' degrees: question

[felissamy]

I genuinely don't understand the discourse around this. I know the phrase is not the Conservatives making, but anyway, can anyone help me to understand.
Degrees are labelled poor value and Mickey Mouse if they don't lead to employment.
But the degrees that are given as Mickey Mouse examples seem to be the ones that do lead directly to employment, eg Golf Studies, Tourism Studies, Sports Science. Courses that are inherited from the polytechnic model.

Is Classics or Archaeology not Mickey Mouse because it is done at 'prestigious' universities, where you could study pretty much anything and walk into a job through contacts, cultural capital etc? Or is it not Mickey Mouse because it is perceived to be rigorous, and employability as direct result is unimportant?

Or are only Law, Medicine, Accounting to be supported from now on, as these, against the original principle of the academic university, are a training in a profession. Polytechnics used to be the training version of higher ed, now universities are supposed to be, but on,y around certain professions.

I find it all confusing, And don't think anything much will happen about it, as it is a perennial. The maddening discussions on radio/online expose how little people,e know about universities, funding, loans etc.

If you’re reading s@DistinguishedSocialCommentator’s endless under-informed rants, I wouldn’t take them as anything other than the frothings of someone with a giant bee in her bonnet.

I honestly believe it to be misplaced snobbery and little else. The proles need to stop wasting their time with that learning nonsense and get a nice low paid manual job.

100% snobbery and often spouted out from people who didn't even go to university who like to pooh pooh university.

You are right, the degrees that you have mentioned have some of the highest employment rates.

I went to a polytechnic and there weren't degrees in Golf studies or Tourism Studies.

The Polytechnics, before they morphed into universities on 1992, offered degrees in business, accountancy, law, mech. eng, electronic eng. etc. A business or accountancy degree gave access to a wide range of roles in industry.

Perhaps it is because Golf Studies is terribly narrow. For an investment of three years of my life and £50,000, I'd want something that opened up opportunity, not nailed me down to one avenue.

I did a "Mickey Mouse" degree in the 00s and then a science one via the OU later on. As far as I can see the actual skills required were exactly the same, you still needed to research using journal articles and critically evaluate etc the subject areas were just different. Now I know neither of the those degrees would stand up to an Oxbridge one with all the additional assignments that are required but as a way of extending my knowledge in subject areas I was interested in they were great and both lead into careers I wanted to follow.

I think there is already something in place with the Ofs where places can be limited on courses with a high drop out between year 1 and 2, a low completion rate and low employment - so they are saying add low earnings to the metric in deciding whether to limit places.

So I assume if golf studies has low drop out rate, everyone gets a job and okish earnings it will be fine?

What I was told - and this was years ago, so the advice may be dated, is that 'Mickey Mouse' degrees are ones that allegedly equip you for a given profession but actually don't, or are training you for a profession where there is no need for that qualification.

An example: DH used to work in TV. They never hired people with Media studies degrees because they always needed specialists in the research areas of the programmes. So a nature programme would be more likely to hire a botanist or zoologist, an arts programme a literature or music graduate, a history programme would want someone with a history or archeology degree. Or if they were working abroad, someone fluent in that language. And yet Media Studies degrees were sold to students as a way into TV.

A recent 'Mickey Mouse' degree was Sound Engineering. It is vocational and thoroughly taught, but it only equips you for one job in a profession that is already oversubscribed, and the equipment moves on faster than unis can update it. I've also heard an argument that Business Studies is unnecessary, as school leavers can reach the same level of knowledge through working in a business for three years, as a graduate would after starting on a graduate trainee programme , but with the advantage of being paid along the way, rather than building debt.

Non Mickey-Mouse degrees give you transferrable skills - English teaches critical thinking and long form writing - applicable to many careers from journalism and Publishing to Political and Business speech and report writing; History teaches evaluation and analysis of facts - suitable for Law or Business strategy, policy making etc.

I don't know if this is true, but it's what I was told.

Yeah, but Media Studies also gives you transferrable skills (in fact, almost the same transferrable skills as any humanities or social sciences subject). I expect Golf Studies and Sports Science also give you transferrable skills. In fact, any UG degree, well taught, will give you those.

It's all just snobbism. A rhetoric that dissuades those not already 'elite' from doing anything that will develop their critical thinking and ability to see through the bs spouted by the govt/press/elite that keeps the social status quo.

Oh, and don't forget that Mickey Mouse is the icon of one of the most successful international media corporations (that now, for example, owns the largest market share of the film industry), so using it as an insult is completely nonsensical!

I think that the idea that you should study a degree that opens many options is a bit of a dated concept.

All degrees have to reach a certain level of academic rigour to be able to confer degrees. So in that regard, they ALL involve transferable skills. Research, analysis, communication etc.

Something like golf studies just focuses these skills around a specific field of study. Much like music or RADA or sports science or dentistry.

No one goes for good studies unless they really really want a career in the industry. Employment rates are excellent and skills are transferable and would be suitable for roles in many sports focused industries

The most lucrative employment a year after graduation is medicine and vet medicine. But that's bc they are still constantly training while working. I think the least lucrative was psychology and religious studies. I'd have thought performing arts, music etc would be the lowest income after a year as most are freelance and not doing their career full time.
Education shouldn't just happen in order to get into a job. If that's the case then the degree model as a whole isn't fit for purpose as it's not tailored or vocational enough in many cases.

Vet med? Vets are paid shit

Back in the early 80s, I did a sociology degree - most people's idea of central casting mickey mouse. And it's true, I did struggle to get a first job (though it was the 80s, up north, so I was not alone). Also true that I only got a place, applying three months late, because it was heavily undersubscribed.

But I loved the subject, and still do. In the decades since I have worked mainly in health policy (for the government, nhs and third sector) and I truly believe the concepts, skills and understanding I got from sociology have given me an edge in this work.

So yes, all degrees are not equal, but we shouldn't accept lazy stereotypes about which have value. Also, of course, understanding that the purpose and value of degrees will vary. And there is a huge snob element: my dd was interested in doing a law degree, and every lawyer we spoke to advised against it, but I think Law still is considered more prestigious than criminology or media studies, though I'm not sure why.

The naming has shifted to "rip off degrees", but the madness here is that the govt, in all shades of main parties, introduced fees, and so made a market in education. Then it blames colleges for charging for degrees and producing students who don't earn enough to pay back the loan, which they started, instead of centrally funding a diverse and well skilled workforce. In addition, we live in a low wage economy, so....we just can't win.

@size4feet I think it's the fact their starting salary is higher than someone in another sector.
My cousin and her bf are vets, they seem to do alright. She can afford to keep a horse, in London!

I mainly teach a more.vocational masters that can convert more standard knowledge degrees into a practical career. Our best students come from history, philosophy etc because they've been taught how to analyse, argue, write coherently. So I see value in both but a more traditional grounding degree is hugely beneficial and I'll be steering DC towards those type of subjects rather than something more vocational, then doing the vocational bit afterwards.

No idea why sociology is considered less than a psychology degree tbh. I think most people don't actually know what it is

My understanding of “mickey mouse” degrees is that they are fillers from the days where labour decided everyone should go to university.

this meant unis were able to fund courses just to get bums on seats. So up sprung “media studies” etc, where students with poor a’level results, or non academic a’levels could get on a course.

basically no value but having a bit of paper. No increase in employability, just being able to go to uni for 3 years rather than get a job.

for example a cousin of mine did media studies. Solely because he didn’t get the grades for anything else, but he was the first to go to uni from his family and they all thought university was the path to a great job and wealth. It wasn’t.

I don't recognise that characterisation at all. It's a cliche. I was teaching Cultural and Media Studies in a former poly which laid the groundwork for what is considered cutting edge at RG today....so, no.

I don't like the rhetoric of mickey mouse degrees or think the only reason to go to university is to earn more money, but I do also see something has to change in higher education and many young people are not getting a good investment of their time and money - and fees will inevitably rise soon, to make that even more the case. It is hard to see what the answer is though. I don't actually think fewer degree places but more apprenticeships is the worst idea.

150 years ago people thought English literature was a Mickey Mouse degree (obviously they used different terminology!) as it was pointless as everyone could read in English, and university should be about studying proper literature like Greek or Latin. So yes, it is just ever evolving snobbery about who should learn and what should be learnt.

I actually taught a student at A level who went on to do a Golf Management degree. I went through loads of options with him but he told me Golf was all he was interested in. He played off no handicap. He now successfully manages a golf course in Scotland. It took him 6 years working there to get to be the manager. He seems to love his job and lifestyle.

With every type of company now employing social media teams I would think a social media degree pretty useful. The world changes. I agree snobbery.

There are two sorts of Mickey Mouse degrees aren’t there?

One is the very narrow Golf Course Management, Taylor Swift Studies sort.

The other is meaningless dross taught under more academic titles. The charlatan subject of postmodernism would be a good example.

There’s a lot more of the second category than the first.

A friend of DD’s got a 2:1 in Law and ended up as a manager at Pets at Home via McDonalds. ‘Proper’ degrees don’t all lead to a specific destination either!

Exactly