Bristol University Humanities and Languages entering managed decline

[Ceramiq]

https://epigram.org.uk/university-of-bristol-voluntary-severance-humanities-langauges/

The question isn't 'what do you do with a history degree?' The question is 'what areas of knowledge will make people feel their lives are worth living when AI has taken over and there are no jobs?' That is far more likely to be history than any STEM subject. AI will decimate those jobs too: not just coding and computer science but engineering and even medicine - saw a lecturer say we'd have AI medics within 10 years recently. Plus there are so many other poorly judged statements in this post, it's not surprising the author doesn't realise that reading with skill will be the remaining high level skill, once most people have been persuaded they don't need to bother as AI will do it (badly, inaccurately) for them.

My DD is doing a MFL and linguistics degree and native speakers supposedly were not allowed on the course so I imagine that many MFL courses cannot recruit international students with their higher fees so are losing the Unis money.

@Annoyedbythemickeymousedebate I agree with your comment about 'reading with skills' and it's such a shame that this is less and less evident with STEM being such a preference.

I know this article names Bristol, but presumably it applies to other Universities too. Bristol is one of my DC's top choices (History degree) so it's slightly worrying seeing this. I've heard that Durham is also struggling, and that Exeter took a lot of extra students last year for financial reasons.

You really don't think that the cost to the taxpayer of student loans that will never be repaid because the hypotheses of the scheme were wildly overoptimistic is not an ill conceived policy?

@RainySundayAfternoon Yes, I'm sadly that parent. I strongly encouraged both DD to take a language GCSE, even though it was optional at their school, because I felt it was really valuable. I also paid for a weekly language tutor session for each of them for two years to support their confidence when speaking and also took them for a holiday to Germany so that they had a brief experience of the country. But taking it at A level wouldn't have added to their overall opportunities. They'd have been unlikely to get an A grade, despite getting a 9 at GCSE, and the courses that DD2 wants to do require AAB. The course she most wants offers a year in Austria, taught in English, and she's really keen to do that as she has some German from her GCSE. I really hope she does, I lived/worked abroad for three years in my twenties and I do think that it shapes you.